Dreaming Of The Bones

Nathan Winter wiped his perspiring brow and looked up at the clouds scudding across the sky from the northwest. He’d hoped to finish setting out the plants he’d bought that morning at Audley End’s garden center before the weather turned, but he’d got rather a late start. It had been well worth the drive down to Suffolk, though, for the nursery at the Jacobean manor house stocked some old-fashioned medicinal herbs he’d not found elsewhere. And once there, of course, he’d been unable to resist the temptation to wander in the grounds and gardens, had even had a cup of tea and a sandwich in the restaurant.

Jean had loved Audley End, and they’d spent many a Sunday tramping up and down the staircases, admiring Lord Braybrooke’s specimen collection, even giggling as they fantasized about making love on the round divan in what Jean always called “the posh library.” He’d brought her one last time, in a wheelchair on a fine summer day, but the house had been impossible for her and they’d had to content themselves with a slow perambulation round the herb gardens.

Now that he thought about it, he supposed Audley End must have first given him the idea of planting a traditional medicinal garden, but they’d lived in Cambridge then, in a house with a postage stamp-sized back garden, and Jean had wanted every inch given over to flowers.

Nathan sat back on his heels and surveyed his handiwork. This was his first major project for the cottage garden, and he’d spent the winter months studying Victorian herbalists and garden design, adapting them, then meticulously drawing his own plans. Mullein, tansy, Saint-John’s-wort, juniper, mugwort, myrtle, lovage—he stopped at that one, grinning. People always thought it sounded so romantic, and he supposed it did make an excellent cordial for a cold winter’s night, but it was also a powerful diuretic.

A gust of wind lifted his empty plastic containers and rattled them along the ground. Nathan took another look at the dark shelf of cloud building to the west and set hurriedly to planting the last of his seedlings. He tamped the soil carefully around them, collected his tools and his rubbish, then pushed himself up from the damp ground. His knees protested, as they often did these days when the weather changed, and he remembered ruefully the days when he’d been able to spend hours kneeling without feeling the least bit stiff. Maybe he’d better have a good long soak in a lavender and arnica bath before dinner-—dinner! How could he possibly have forgotten that he’d invited Adam Lamb for drinks and an early supper? And the man was a devout vegetarian, which meant Nathan would have to come up with something suitable or risk offending him. He made a mental inventory of the contents of the fridge. Eggs, a few mushrooms—he could whip up omelettes, a green salad … there was half a loaf of granary bread from the bakery in Cambridge … a meager supper, but it would have to do. And for pudding he could use the trifle he’d bought at Tesco’s, though he’d hoped to save it for more festive circumstances.

What on earth had possessed him to ask Adam round? Guilt, more than likely, he admitted with a grimace of disgust as he started for the house. He’d always felt a bit sorry for Adam, for reasons he found hard to articulate. Maybe it was that Adam seemed to try too hard at life, but his dedication to any number of good causes never produced much visible result. And the ironic thing, Nathan thought as he held on to the doorjamb and struggled out of his wellies, was that yesterday when Adam had rung him, he’d had the distinct impression that Adam was feeling sorry for him.

Adam Lamb nursed his old Mini out the Grantchester Road, past the University Rugby Grounds, coasting downhill when he could to save petrol. Although he didn’t believe in owning automobiles, his parish work rendered some form of transport a necessity, so he salved his conscience by driving a car that passed its MOT each year only by the grace of God. His rationing of petrol had an economic as well as a moral impetus—a few carefully consolidated trips a week were all his meager budget would allow.

A gust of wind rattled the car and Adam looked back at the overtaking bank of clouds. He should have walked tonight—it was less than two miles, after all, along the river path, and they’d done it without thinking when they were students—but the threat of rain had combined with a nagging cold to dampen his enthusiasm. He felt old, suddenly, and tired.

Adam slowed almost to a walking pace as he came into the outskirts of Grantchester. As near as it was to Cambridge, he hadn’t been here in years. He’d certainly never expected Nathan to come back, at least not alone. When he’d heard through mutual friends that Nathan had inherited his parents’ house and meant to live in it, he’d felt a little frisson of unease.

The Grantchester Road became Broadway, and as Adam inched round the last curve before the High Street junction, he blinked in surprise. Surely this couldn’t be it? The cottage of his memories had been shabby, with crumbling stucco, brambles in the garden, and sparrows nesting in the thatch. But a look at the houses either side assured him that he had indeed found the house, for they fit his dim recollection of the neighbors. He stopped the car against the left-hand curb and got out just as the first fine drops of rain began to fall, forgetting the parking brake in his bemusement. He stood, gaping at the cottage’s new bricked drive and circular walkway, putting green lawn and immaculate perennial borders, pristine whitewash and thatch—someone had worked a miracle.

The front door opened and Nathan came out, grinning. “Leaves you speechless, doesn’t it?” he said as he met Adam and shook his hand. “Good to see you.” He gestured back at the house. “I know it’s embarrassingly quaint, but I have to admit I’m enjoying it. Come in.”

Nathan looked surprisingly well. His hair had gone completely white since Jean’s death, but it suited him, setting off his dark eyes and naturally rosy complexion. Adam remembered how they’d teased Nathan when he started to gray in his twenties, but Nathan had met Jean by then and hadn’t cared a fig for what any of them thought, not even Lydia.

Shying away from the thought of her, Adam made an effort to collect himself. “But how did you… I mean, it must have … surely your parents didn’t…” A big drop of rain splattered on his spectacles, momentarily blinding him.

Nathan put a hand on his shoulder and propelled him towards the door. “I’ll fix you a drink and tell you all about it, if you like.” Once inside, he shut the door against the rain and took Adam’s anorak, hanging it neatly from a pegged rack. “Whisky suit you?”

“Um, yes. Fine.” Adam followed him into a sitting room as transformed as the exterior. Gone was the dark antimacassared furniture, the Victorian and Edwardian knickknacks that Nathan’s mother had loved. Now the accommodating-looking upholstered pieces sported a cheery red-and-blue William Morris print, a thick rug covered the floorboards, and the wood fire burning in the hearth winked from the leaded-glass windows. All in all it was a delightful room, seductive in its comfort, and Adam thought of his Cambridge rectory with a shiver of regret. He went to the fire and warmed his hands as he watched Nathan pour their drinks from a bottle of the Macallan on the sideboard. “A great improvement over the old electric fire,” he said as Nathan handed him his glass. “Cheers.”

Nathan laughed as he settled himself into one of the chairs near the fire. “I’m surprised you remember that. It was a bit feeble, wasn’t it?” Stretching his legs out towards the warmth, he sipped his drink. “My parents had the central heating put in, of course, but it was only allowed on for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. I suppose it did make bathing and getting in and out of bed bearable, but the rest of the time we huddled in here in front of that silly electric bar. The chimney always worked, you know, but once they’d made up their minds that the electric fire was less costly to run, there was no going back.” He shook his head. “I don’t think they ever recovered from the war, or stopped fearing that the hard times would come again. When I cleared out the larder, I found tins of food as old as I am—my mother hoarded them.”