Читать книгу The Unfinished Garden - Barbara White Claypole - Страница 15

Chapter 9

Tilly watched the Discovery tear out of the driveway and tried not to feel like the duped heroine in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Ro and Sebastian were locked in some conspiracy, and her mother? They hugged, and Tilly’s fingers touched bone. Her mother had lost more than weight since Christmas. She had shrunk in on herself; she had aged.

“You look washed out,” her mother said.

“And you look tired. The life of leisure too much for you?”

“You know me. I rarely sit. Having this much time—” Her mother cleared her throat. “Makes me feel old and dependent.”

The shrill cry of magpies accompanied by a throaty cuckoo-cuckoo sneaked up from the paddock. As a child, nothing delighted Tilly more than the first cuckoo of the season. And everything in Tilly’s favorite garden was as it should be. The cherry tree was wrapped in stockings to keep birds from the fruit, the herbaceous border was a mass of pinks, blues and lavender, and clusters of white rambling rector blooms smothered the stone wall. Her father had planted that rose. How he loved his roses! How her mother interfered when he tried to tend them. But today, Woodend was a flat canvas; it didn’t soothe.

In Tilly’s mind, her mother was always forty years old, plowing through the black waves off the coast of Cornwall with her neck rigid and her hair dry. This morning, however, Mrs. Haddington looked less like a woman defying the Atlantic Ocean and more like an old dear who hadn’t noticed that the left side of her silk blouse hung over the waistband of her skirt.

“I was so bored yesterday, I attempted to knit a tea cozy for the church bazaar.” Her mother tucked in her blouse, then puffed up her thick, white bob. “Which is utterly ridiculous, given this.” She waved her bandaged hand. “How was it, seeing Sebastian again?”

“Mum.” Tilly issued a warning.

Her mother nipped a leaf from the Lady Hillingdon rose that snaked around the back door. “Black spot.” She tutted. “You’ll have to spray. Marigold says it’s a nasty separation. Between Sebastian and Fanny.”

“Fiona.” Tilly watched a pair of sparrows frolic in the stone birdbath. “And Marigold knows this how?”

“She heard it from Sylvia, who heard it from Beryl, who has the same woman-that-does as Sebastian—Mabel Dillington. There’s more.”

Tilly had always wanted eyes like her mother’s. Eyes you couldn’t ignore. Eyes that were the bright blue of a Carolina sky. Tilly’s eyes were pale and translucent, the color of porcelain brushed with a robin’s-egg wash. They made her look ethereal, when she yearned to be an Amazon.

“There’s evidence of a relationship.” Her mother had yet to blink.

Tilly scuffed her Doc Martens boot through round, evenly sized pebbles in coordinating sand tones. Unlike Tilly’s gravel, which was made up of lumps of quartz and splinters of gray rock, her mother’s driveway was perfect. “I’d forgotten how rumors fly in this place. Shame on you for listening.”

“Hardly rumor. And there’s no need to be sanctimonious. Mabel saw the Discovery parked outside Manor Farm yesterday at 6:00 a.m. Now. Where did Isaac and Monty disappear to?” Her mother hobbled up the stone step and through the back door.

Tilly raised her face into the damp, morning air. The sun had vanished, replaced by a fine Scotch mist. So they’re having sex. Big whoop. I just need to figure out how to avoid them for six weeks.

An empty truck rattled along the High Street. Empty trucks—when did she stop calling them lorries?—sounded different from heavily loaded ones. It had to do with the way they hit the dip on the corner. She gazed through the gateway, the place where she had met David. And then she stared back at the house, the place she had longed to run to after he died. After he died because of her. She’d grown used to the guilt, but it was always lurking. And when she was tired, as she was now, it thudded inside her skull like a migraine.

“Tilly! Phone!” her mother called from the kitchen. “A James Nealy?”

* * *

“Good flight?” James grabbed the rail on the treadmill, let go and repeated. Six times. Would she shriek? Accuse him of being a two-bit stalker? But despite what the voice had told him yesterday—over and over—he wasn’t a stalker. Although he had memorized the state harassment laws just to make sure.

“Are you an insomniac?” Tilly said. “It can’t be much later than 5:00 a.m. your time.”

He had prepared for incredulity or hostility, nothing else. And yet she’d asked about his sleep habits. What did that mean?

The treadmill whirred beneath him. “I exercise every morning from four-thirty to six-thirty.” That was probably more information than she needed.

“You get up at four-thirty? Are you crackers?”

What the hell did crackers mean? Who knew, but it didn’t sound good. So yes, clearly he had given her too much information. She was probably freaking out at this very moment, dialing 911 on her cell phone to report him for infringing the state harassment law that included: To telephone another repeatedly, whether or not conversation ensues, for the purpose of abusing, annoying, threatening, terrifying, harassing or embarrassing any person at the called number. Was he annoying her?

“Have you made a decision?” He spoke quickly, a preemptive strike in case she was considering hanging up.

“James.” Her voice dragged with exhaustion. He should’ve waited another hour at least, given her a chance to unpack. But it had taken all his restraint to not call her at 4:30 a.m. “I promised you an answer in September.”

“Can’t wait that long.”

“You’re worse than a child. Isaac was never this demanding, even at three.”

His pulse slowed as her accent, soft and warm, soothed him. He actually thought about crawling into bed and going back to sleep. After he’d showered, of course. “Do you talk to all your clients this way, or just me?”

“I have wholesale customers, not clients, for this very reason. And no, I haven’t given your project one iota of a thought. I just walked in the door after twelve hours of traveling, and all I care about is where I packed my toothbrush and whether there’s a pair of clean knickers nearby.”

“Is that so?” An image assaulted him, of Tilly wearing nothing but a scarlet thong and gardening gloves. He shook back his hair and upped the speed on the treadmill.

“How did you track me down?” Tilly asked.

Sari ratted you out. Once he discovered her sons were fans, he had all the leverage he needed.

“You can find anything,” he said, “if you’re determined.” That wasn’t a lie, even though the voice told him it was.

“I’m trying to be patient. Really. But I’m dangerously close to telling you to jump off a pier. Only with a few choice expletives thrown in.” She paused. “How’re the silent hiccups?”

“You really want to know?” His voice was almost a whisper.

“Sadly, yes. I do.”

“Worse.” The treadmill creaked an indignant rhythm as he upped the speed a second time. He’d never taken it this high.

“So you’re going to keep calling me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Time for a deal, Mr. Nealy. You get an answer in one week—if, and only if, you agree to abide by my decision. And no calling in the interim.”

Was that a yes? Or a no? Or a nothing? He hated nothings. But it could turn into a yes, right? “Agreed.”

“And—”

“Addendums?” He panted. “Already?”

“I’d like the adult explanation of your hiccups.”

“Will it…affect your…decision?” He was running hard now. Racing against the voice, which was stuck doing a circuit of: If you tell her, she’ll think you’re a fucking weirdo. James tried to drown out the thought with the lyrics of “Psycho Killer,” but he couldn’t get past the line that basically said, leave me the hell alone because I’m a live wire.

“Labels are merely a way of lumping people together like plants on a stall,” Tilly said. “I don’t much care what yours is.” She was smiling. He could hear it in the pitch of her voice. “Okay, gloves-off honesty. I’m curious.”

“What’s…your…label?” His sneakers pounded the treadmill belt.

“I thought we were talking about you.”

“I’m not…all that…interesting.” Once you edit out the crazy bits.

“Okay, fine. I’m game for a little transatlantic show-and-tell.” She gave a huge sigh. “I’m a guilt-ridden widow. No, that’s too strong. I’m not drowning in guilt. It’s just there, in the background.”

James blew out a couple of breaths and slowed down to a fast walk. “You have to be careful with guilt.” So, Tilly understood the horror of a damaged mind, which couldn’t be good either for her, or for Isaac. “Guilt can become an intrusive thought. And that’s my world. Thoughts that drag you back and under. Thoughts that never let go. Obsessive thoughts that lead to compulsive actions. Look up OCD on Wikipedia and read about cognitive-behavioral therapy. It’s a way of redirecting unwanted thoughts. You might find it helpful.” He shut the treadmill. At 5:16 a.m. the day was already too long. “I’ll call one week from today. Same time.”

James hung up and crumpled across the front of the treadmill. He had told her! Told her he was crippled by an anxiety disorder that popular culture equated with people to ridicule or fear: a television detective incapable of navigating life without a wipes-carrying assistant; a monster driven to murder by odd numbers; a billionaire recluse who couldn’t touch doorknobs and died in squalor. James banged the heels of his hands into his temples. Bang, bang. Bang, bang. Bang, bang.

He never told anyone he had OCD—not family, not lovers, not close friends. His buddy Sam guessed years ago, but it was understood, not discussed, which was what James wanted. It was no one’s business but his own, because to say those words out loud was to brand himself. Tilly was right—OCD was a label, and with labels came stigma, and weakness, and pity. Everything that James detested, everything that reminded him how it felt to be ten years old, standing by his mother’s grave, scared of the future, terrified of the thoughts unraveling in his brain, and desperate not to be the object of people’s stares. Desperate to blend in and disappear, to be the person you never quite remembered, when he was more likely to be the person you wished you could forget.

She hates you, she’s scared of you, she thinks you’re a kook.

No, no. James pressed down with his palms. He was done with doubt. It would not pull him under again. He would not revert to the person he had been before he had decided to sell the business, the apartment, the farm. Before he had decided to save himself.

Besides, Tilly? Scared of anyone? He didn’t think so. And yes, he was weird. He was weird! So what? He should be able to shout to the world that he was obsessive-compulsive, to do so without dreading other people’s reactions. Maybe opening up to Tilly was the first step, and no different from his dad attending an A.A. meeting just so he could announce, “I’m a drunk.”

That was a good theory and one James desperately wanted to believe. Acknowledging weakness gave you strength, but he’d slipped up, released personal information without having intended to, and that was out of character. Other people said things they shouldn’t; he didn’t.

But when he’d hinted at the truth that day at the farm, hadn’t a small part of him dared to trust, dared to believe that he had met someone, finally, who might understand? How would Tilly treat him now that she knew? Would she look at him and see the OCD, not James? Was it even possible to separate the two?

His psychologist always said, “It’s the OCD, not you,” but the lines weren’t distinct for James. OCD may have twisted up his mind, but it had crafted him, made him James, pushed him to succeed and bequeathed the only gift that mattered: the ability to perceive pain in others. He didn’t always act on that knowledge, didn’t always want to, but he was drawn to people in dark corners, could empathize with them. So now he was being altruistic. Truthfully, you enjoy living alongside people who are more fucked-up than you. That wasn’t true of most of his friends, but it had been his M.O. in love.

His thoughts circled him back to Tilly. She would take him on. She would. But once they started working together, once they had regular contact, he would have to be more careful. Because if she saw behind the label, if he revealed the biggest truth of all, she would never understand. The end. The end.