‘Do you really w-w-want to look after a g-g-garden, darling? Especially if we do b-b-buy a p-p-place in France.’
‘Merry needs space to run around,’ says Maggie.
‘And Marco will want to play football. Not sure there’s enough space,’ David adds.
‘Okay, so just grass in the garden. A lawn will need regular cutting. We’ll need to agree who does what and when. And while we don’t need rules, not exactly…’ Amy looks at Simon for support, ‘there might be certain things that aren’t, that wouldn’t be allowed.’
‘Like what?’ says Maggie.
‘I don’t know…’
‘Is this about my dog?’
‘Well, I’d have thought it best if Merry doesn’t do his business in the garden.’
‘I call that a rule,’ Maggie complains. ‘My dog should be able to poo where he feels moved to do so.’
‘But not in my… I mean the garden,’ Amy replies.
‘Alright, alright. But if we’re making rules, I’ve got one. My Buddha statue. It must be given respect.’
‘It’s a bit c-c-creepy,’ Simon mutters.
‘My Buddha is not creepy, Simon, my Buddharupa is special,’ Maggie is bristling. She notes the years have added rigidity to her former boyfriend’s attitudes. ‘Someone has been moving it. Where I put it should be where it remains.’
She bought the statue on a trip to India over twenty years ago. A visit she often referred to (some students thinks rather too often) when teaching the grounding of the English language.
‘It’s a Meditation Buddha and will bring serenity to our cottage.’
Simon looks askance.
Amy says quickly: ‘Fair enough. No one is to move the Buddha. So, repairs to the cottage. Perhaps we should start a fund, pay in regular amounts. Anyone like to manage that?’
No one speaks.
‘I mean, there are d-d-damp patches behind the c-c-cooker and toilet, the bathroom tap’s leaking and …’
‘It all sounds rather expensive,’ David says.
‘But necessary to do, surely?’ Amy wonders if David is still tight with money.
‘I’m not loaded like you lot. Child support and all that.’
‘We’re not loaded,’ protests Amy.
‘You drink nice wine,’ said David.
‘Which we’re h-h-happy to s-s-share…’
‘…and you’re buying a cottage in France,’ David adds.
‘We m-m-might one d-d-ay.’
‘I hope owning Bramble Cottage will be a positive thing,’ Maggie says drily.
The atmosphere has stiffened. She’s put into words what everyone is starting to wonder.
‘A t-t-top-up anyone?’ says Simon brightly.
No one demurs.
‘I’ll need another bottle then. Oh dear, there doesn’t seem to be one. Does the pub sell wine?’
‘Wave to Amy,’ Miriam says to Peter as they drive past the cottage on Monday morning. Her neighbour is still in night clothes in the porch staring glumly at the rain.
Miriam has been up for almost two hours getting herself and her son ready for work and nursery. She will drop him there on the way to the office.
There is still a frisson of pride as she dresses each morning. Two years of night school and weekend study snatched when Peter napped to prepare for the accountancy exams was worthwhile. Her promotion and the accompanying rise in pay were welcome, particularly as she was the main breadwinner for the family. Maggie waves to the man on the tractor who drives by. In reality she is the only breadwinner.
Julian has never had a job as far as she knows, and that situation did not change when they married five years ago. He keeps himself busy with his cars and machines, fixes fences and chops wood; he does not earn cash. She manages the family finances. The means by which food finds its way on to their table is never discussed.
‘Peter, see the cows in the field. What do cows say?’
‘Moo,’ the boy responds dutifully. He slips his thumb between his lips, hoping his mother won’t notice in the mirror. She says it is a babyish habit, but she doesn’t know how delicious it tastes.
Miriam kisses her son goodbye and drives on to the firm where she works. It is the first time one of the cottage’s owners has stayed on into the working week. Julian told her Amy is a freelance writer; women’s magazines apparently. Miriam does not read such magazines. She noticed Simon and the miserable teenage daughter leaving the cottage on Sunday morning, no doubt driven away by the steady drizzle. That’s life in the countryside for you, you have to be resourceful, come rain or shine.
Amy will get lonely, Miriam thinks as she settles at her desk. But there definitely aren’t enough leftovers from Sunday’s roast to invite her for supper.
When Julian found himself proposing marriage to Miriam within four months of meeting her, he was almost as baffled as she. Miriam was like a lifebuoy; round and unsinkable. Comfortable in flat shoes and anoraks, she was the unlikely partner of a quirky man like Julian. But his previous girlfriends, exotic in name and character, would not have provided the steadiness he needed. Whether conscious or not, he knew she what was he needed.
Neither was Miriam the sort of woman that Seymour admired, at least initially, for she was not beautiful. But her inscrutability intrigued him. Seymour came to acknowledge, if not to understand, that something she offered was necessary for his son’s stability. The night he invited her to play Scrabble, they all knew what is signified; acceptance. Miriam usually beat Seymour at the game and, though he minded, it was not tremendously. When Seymour became very unwell, he announced that Miriam was allowed to give him bed baths; no one else. She had something he needed, too.
27
Amy closes the door as Miriam drives past, wondering vaguely why she feels as though she’s been caught doing something naughty. She makes a pot of strong coffee and sets up her laptop in the sitting room. She had always imagined the cottage would be the perfect place to write her column of gardening tips for housewives who could curl up on their clean sofas and fantasise about what they would one day plant, certain in the knowledge they would never put hand to trowel. Today she must write an article on the ‘seven
