Chapter Twenty-Two #2
He pressed the button and the gates moved smoothly, making a satisfying clunk as they rested open, allowing access to the wide slope of driveway, which was edged in what looked like shiny chrome balls.
Closer inspection would reveal them to be water features, each with a gentle cascade coating it entirely, the delicate trickle the sweetest music that cut through the floral-scented air.
The grass on either side of the driveway was neat with sharp edging and considered and controlled planting.
She couldn’t wait to give Jenny all the details, before instantly striking this from her thoughts and swallowing the wave of hurt that swamped her even now.
It was hard not to compare it to her own garden, where wisteria climbed over red brick and hung in soft droplets of lilac when in bloom.
The wild garden in front of the shed; an abundance of grasses, shot through with delicate-headed wildflowers, an all-you-could-eat buffet if you were of the bee kind.
One entire bed given over to the roses that seemed more abundant year on year.
Hers was a garden that was wild, directed to a degree, but untamed, and she loved it.
This was a different thing entirely. She could only wonder at the amount of work it would take to keep nature so bound in straight lines and in such order. A battle, no less.
‘Here we are,’ he announced with pride, and she understood that already he felt at home. It was another paper cut of loss that she would no doubt analyse in the early hours, at 3 a.m. to be precise, when those thoughts insisted on floating to the top.
Slowly, they approached a row of garages to the right of the house, all with shiny black doors and what looked to be offices or at the very least storage above.
‘That’s where Dominic works.’ He pointed to the windows.
‘What does he do?’ She knew he had his own business but hadn’t got round to asking.
‘He’s an architect, a commercial architect.’
‘Right.’
It made sense, his informed commentary on her home and taste. She looked away, not wanting another place to picture him during the day, uncomfortable at how easily she was slotting in the next piece of jigsaw that helped complete the picture of his life and how he lived it.
‘So if he’s as free as you say he is, what’s stopping you...’ She heard Angela’s words and shook these too from her head.
As if to counter this thought, she pictured Jonathan, wondering if he might come back to her, praying he might.
It was almost comical, the way Aiden parked the little car between two whopping four by fours.
There was no sign of the silver Mercedes that had been instrumental in her introduction to this man and his family.
The Mumbley Boys... She ran her fingers over her mouth, as if to physically remove any hint of a smile.
‘Hey!’
She heard the call as she climbed from the car and there was Trish, with Iris not far behind.
‘Here you are!’ The woman crunched over the immaculate gravel, her arms wide, clearly intent on coming in for a hug.
‘You made it!’ she trilled, as if Enya had had to trek across mountains or conquer shark-infested waters and had not merely hopped on the 2.
15 from Bristol with the mild inconvenience of not having a seat.
‘Yes, here I am! Your garden is lovely. It must be so much work.’
‘Oh, it’s endless.’ Trish held her briefly and kissed her cheek in a way that was familiar and showy.
Enya knew deep down that were the woman not attached to Dominic, she would have found her actions to be nothing but endearing, kind.
‘Thankfully, it’s not work I have to do.
Goodness, I wouldn’t know where to start!
That’s where Young Walter comes in, and this is absolutely darling,’ she laughed, ‘he’s called Young Walter because, obviously, his father is Walter Senior and Young Walter is probably knocking eighty.
But he never misses a shift, here at the crack of dawn three days a week.
He works so hard, weeding the beds, cutting the grass, keeping everything ship-shape.
He used to have a garden himself, but the word is that after his wife died, well, I think he lost his way a bit, unravelled, and moved in with his dad.
His life seems very small, and so coming here, the routine, the regimen, the chance to get his hands in soil, we both benefit. ’
Enya could only nod, feeling kinship with Young Walter, wondering, not for the first time, what her life might be like when in a few months there would be no need to order files, answer the phone, send out mail, open packages and generally loiter in that dust-filled office at the beck and call of Messrs Greengate and Greengate.
Jenny’s florist’s had sat like a bright hope on the horizon, but now she’d have to come up with plan B.
It was that or sink entirely. What on earth was she going to do?
‘Enya! Hi!’ Iris called confidently as she jogged towards her, and she too greeted Enya with a soft kiss that failed to reach her cheek, but instead hovered in the air. A kiss that was cool and contained.
Enya remembered when she and Jonathan were engaged, and his mother, Mrs Dorothy Brown, an aloof woman of the era when things were a little more formal, never said, Call me Dorothy!
Or God forbid, Mother! There were a couple of years when Enya panicked every time she had to speak to her, what should she call her?
To say Mrs Brown felt uncomfortably officious, and relegated Enya, placing her very much outside of the inner circle.
She smiled to think of it now, her younger self excruciatingly pouring tea from a nervous hand, ‘ Would you like milk and sugar... Mrs, Dor... Mu... ’ The woman did nothing to help put an end to the fiasco.
Thankfully, when Aiden was born it simplified everything.
Enya had by then grown in confidence, and would say with something close to assertion, ‘More tea, Granny Brown ?’ Mrs Brown had given no indication she liked or disliked the moniker but was rather taken with her new grandson and that was all that mattered really. Different times.
‘Hello, Iris.’ She smiled at the girl whose face she had yet to learn. The girl her son had, without doubt or hesitation, chosen. The question whether it was a choice made in lust or love was still a concern.
‘I can’t wait to show you all the bits and bobs we’ve pulled together.
We’ve got cake samples, the lemon is my favourite, but then I love all things lemon, sashes for the flower girls, tablecloths and napkins, which Mum and I can’t agree on, buttonholes, place-card holders, and there’s a menu for us to look at and I need to confirm the photographer.
’ Iris clasped her hands and smiled, calmly enthusiastic, it would seem, when it came to the impending nuptials.
‘I don’t know how people string out the planning for a wedding for a year or longer.
Three weeks or so is plenty if you’re willing to pay! ’
Enya studied the face of her future daughter-in-law, looking for clues.
Was she a little red-eyed, either from an emotional or disrupted night just spent?
It was a relief to find that she looked as fresh as a daisy.
And the way she held out her hand for Aiden to take as they walked back to the house together suggested that whatever he had said about Holly’s pregnancy, he was most certainly forgiven.
She was happy for him. For them all. If Iris had reacted badly and it had caused ripples or worse, it would have felt like the cruellest blow.
All that heartache and disruption for nothing, everyone’s happiness, Aiden’s included, cut down to a nub, never again to grow with quite the same abundance, how could it?
Her head swam at just how complicated it had all become.
‘I can’t wait.’
She matched the girl’s energy, understanding that it was not Iris’s fault that she had walked in at the third act, where Holly had been centre stage since curtain up.
Not her fault at all. And for Iris to be so inclusive, so considerate, was every mother-in-law’s dream, the alternative too horrible to consider.
‘Come through! Thought we’d start with tea.’ Trish led the way as they moved en masse towards the vast white box of a house, where huge windows gave sight of the immaculate gardens and the view from the back.
‘Oh, my goodness!’
It really was the most extraordinary property, putting her in mind of an art gallery.
She felt Trish’s eyes on her face, clearly excited to take in her reaction to the space, which was almost cathedral-like.
A vast, marble-floored cavern with white steel beams running across the roof in lieu of rafters and grand, modern chandeliers hanging down like an art installation themselves.
There were no obvious walls that she could see, the staircase cleverly hidden via a box to the front that led to the upstairs rooms.
‘I like your home very much. The softness of it... the cushions, linens, worn wood, glass, rounded chairs, lots of circles and tactile pieces. No sharp edges.’
His words made much more sense to her now.
The house was zoned with a white kitchen area at one end, and a huge fireplace that looked more spaceship than inglenook as it dangled from a white tube going all the way up to the roof.
Deep-pile white rugs were strategically placed on the floor, and white bookshelves, home to hi-tech or funky objets trouvés , but as far as she could make out, no books.
Two oversized white leather chairs with matching footstools were positioned to face the rear of the building, and this was where her eyes were now drawn.
‘This is magnificent.’ Enya shook her head at the wonder of it, looking out over the patio where a pink powder-coated table and seating for twenty was dwarfed by the garden beyond.