Chapter 1 #3
Light filters through the greenhouse from the back door, everything dim and shadowy, like a high-grain photograph. Nora looks at her mother, dirt streaked on her brow; her vegetables all around them, hanging like baubles in the silver-gold light.
I’m engaged, Nora tells her, her hands still clasped tight in her mother’s.
Freya stares at her.
Robin asked me to marry him yesterday, Nora says. And I said yes.
There is a moment where neither of them moves, her words landing like the rain tapping, now, on the glass roof.
Then Freya lets go of Nora’s hands, steps back and yanks on a chain so that a bulb douses them in light.
She turns, then, picks up some small secateurs and starts snipping at leaves; the ones with the deadly disease, Nora assumes.
So what d’you think, Nora says, watching her mother’s elbows, hearing the snap of stems as she works.
Clearly, Freya says, it doesn’t matter what I think.
Don’t do this, Nora says.
Do what? Respond when you’ve asked me a question?
I know how you feel about marriage, Nora says, but I –
Are seemingly quite happy to squeeze yourself into the outdated box of wifedom, yes! Wear virginal white, vow to obey him, be bound to him forevermore because that’s what capitalism – nay, our white male governments – demand of us all?
I love him, Freya. He loves me.
And isn’t that enough? Why marry him at all? I thought you didn’t want to get married.
You didn’t want me to get married, Nora muses, but does not say.
Thinking back to the fairy tales she was never read, as a child.
How she was lectured on women’s rights when most girls were watching Cinderella or Snow White, which was not fair, she’d shout, stamping up the stairs.
What’s not fair, Freya would shout after her, is that unavoidable something called the patriarchy!
But there are other memories too, Nora knows, from this greenhouse, and their cottage, behind it.
The paintings she’d made, with her mother’s encouragement.
Not allowing her a phone, in case she got brain cancer, which meant she spent her adolescence outside or making things, instead of scrolling on a screen.
The women-only meditation groups and book clubs that had, in turn, inspired her own events programme at the art café she set up with Shay, and something softens inside of her, at the thought.
At the stubborn movements of her mother’s hands, not even two decades older than hers; after Freya fell pregnant at sixteen, and left home; left her Catholic parents, and everything she’d known, just so she could keep her. Give Nora a life.
I guess I just … changed my mind, Nora says, gently. There is another long silence, and her mother lets out a humph.
Did you just humph, Nora says. A pause, more snipping. But then her mother breathes through her nose; half laughter, half snort, but before she can respond, more light floods forward from next door; Josie’s back door opening, the gate connecting their gardens swinging backwards.
Freya! Josie calls out, her voice carrying across the night air. Freya, how’re the tomato plants?
Fine, Jose, Freya says. Just fine, with a bit of pruning, like I told you.
I’ve been reading up about it, Josie says, who is a soft shadow now through the mottled walls, the glass thick with algae. Apparently the best thing to do is remove all of the infected plants. All of them, not just the leaves.
I do know this, Josephine.
Well I saw your greenhouse light on and thought I best come and tell you. I’ve got the web page up on my phone; I could read it out to you, if you like. There’s a whole Gardeners’ World page on it. It’s ever so good. Ever so informative.
Freya doesn’t respond; carries on snipping.
Hi, Josie, Nora pipes up, and there is a startled pause.
Nora? Sweetheart!
We were having a greenhouse moment, Freya says, and there is a beat of silent panic before Josie asks why, what’s wrong?
Nothing’s wrong, says Nora.
I beg to differ, Freya says.
Robin’s asked me to marry him, Nora says, to another startled beat, but then Josie lets out a coo, like a collared dove.
Oh, Nora! That’s wonderful!
And that’s a normal reaction, Nora says to Freya, as her mother’s friend hurries round to the greenhouse door. Nora slides it back to see her smiling face, her slender frame draped in a shawl. Mist of rain above her.
I’m so happy, Josie tells her, clasping Nora’s wrists as though she truly means it, in spite of everything.
In spite of her husband dying so suddenly, more than a decade ago.
Her only son leaving, never to return. Pills she has to take, daily, lined up on her window sill, a cocktail of drugs she will never stop needing that keep her confined to the house, keep her from becoming fixated on abnormal things, keep her life small and solitary and contained.
And yet she is overflowing, it seems, with this moment, this joy that is not even hers, beaming at Nora as if she’s her own daughter, as if this is her own wonderful news, and Nora swallows all the feeling this stirs up in her as she says me too, Josie. Me too.
_
Well, Freya says, back in the kitchen. I suppose it’s an excuse to wear a giant hat.
Josie is taking down three glasses from a shelf, and Nora is putting the now-clean mushrooms into a Tupperware. You do rock a hat, Nora says.
Don’t butter me up, Freya says, and when Josie looks confused, Nora explains that her feminist free spirit might as well be dead, now she’s engaged. Freya snorts, but when Josie still looks nonplussed, she says, marriage, Josephine! It’s just not for me.
Something burns, briefly, in Nora’s stomach; at how her mother can say this to Josie, of all people.
But Josie doesn’t react, as if she’s barely noticed.
Nora often wonders if this is how they’ve remained such good friends; Freya, able to say what she wants, unfiltered, and Josie, so often oblivious, letting it slide.
So did he get down on one knee, Josie asks Nora, handing her a water glass.
No, Nora says. We were outside, by the river. On our lunch break.
How lovely. Jon proposed to me outside, did I ever tell you that? Up a hill, somewhere.
More burning, then, a twist in her gut. Nora puts down her glass and turns around, pulls out knives and forks just as Freya opens the oven door, steam expelling in a cloud.
Hot tray slid outwards, hiding her face.
But the moment passes. Josie is talking about garden birds, now.
Nora’s news has been acknowledged and left behind, just like anything else in Josie’s world, and rather than disappointing, this feels like a relief.
Because it’s no big deal, like Freya might make it out to be.
People get married all the time; it requires no justification to herself, or to her mother, or to old friends she’s not seen in years.
I put out the Niger seed, Josie is saying, and would you believe it, the goldfinch came back. All five of them. D’you know they’re called a charm, when they’re in a group?
Really, Nora says, though Josie’s told her this countless times.
I’ve not seen the bullfinch for a while, though. And I do worry about him. When it’s been this long.
Nora hears this, and doesn’t respond as she lays down three sets of cutlery at the table.
Oh, I won’t be staying, pet, Josie says, but Freya demands that she join them, come on. But I already had my soup, at six, Josie says, as though that settles it.
Wait, Nora says, catching sight of the tray on the side. I thought you were joking about the turkey dinosaurs?
Why would I joke about such a delicacy? Freya says, dislodging a stegosaurus with her spatula.
Aren’t you a vegan, these days?
I am! And as part of a varied diet of self-care and plant-based intentions, they’re a once-in-a-blue-moon treat. Plus tonight is the Wolf Moon, which counts. I might even add the mushrooms to the side salad.
The mushrooms that could end up blinding us?
I thought they’d add a certain beige thrill, yes.
I think, Josie says, with a sip of her water, that’s my cue to leave.
Freya says suit yourself; waves her off. Nora waits, then follows her without a word. Through the hallway, then porch, saying her name in the driveway. Nora! Josie says, turning from her own front door. You’ll catch your death!
It’s okay, Nora says. I just wanted to …
The moon hangs above them, shining behind the branches of the birch on their shared lawn. Josie watches her, the orb reflected in her eyes.
It’s great that Robin’s proposed, Nora tells her. Obviously.
Really lovely, Josie agrees, and Nora nods, says yes, but she’d really like her not to say anything to Bren, yet, until she can tell him herself, although she does not say this last part, because it is a stupid, unexplainable thing to want to say; and also because it’s a lie, seeing as she’d had the chance to tell Bren, just recently, over email, and she hadn’t.
Josie, though, is still watching her. The rain has stopped, now, the night fresh and cold. Frost due on the ground by morning.
Do you think, Nora says, instead, her heart slow. Do you think Freya will be okay with it, once it’s all – sunk in?
Josie’s cottage door stands half open, her hand on the frame; wedding ring agleam on her left knuckle, as she studies Nora’s face.
Yes, pet, Josie says. It might just be … a surprise, at first.
No wind, or noise. Shadow of the swing set behind them on the green.
But if you’re happy, Josie says, then that’s all that will matter, in the end.
She takes her hand off the door and rests it on Nora’s arm. Just lightly. Like a moth landing there.
Have you heard from him lately, she asks, and Nora’s heart does not stop, at the question, but keeps beating, slow, slow, slow.
No, she says, but then, well, yes, but just over email. Have you?
A sigh from Josie, small and sad in the moonlight. Shake of her head.
I’m sure you will soon, Nora says. He’s just moved into a new place, in New Zealand, he said. He’s probably just settling in.
Your dinner will be getting cold, pet, Josie says. Send Robin my love, won’t you?
And Nora nods; waits for Josie to step inside and close her door against the dark, then returns to her mother’s cottage, something sinking in her, or perhaps thawing. Wondering if it could somehow be both.