Chapter Fourteen
There ought to be some sort of rule about sneaking up on people in cemeteries.
My heart was robust, I didn’t spook easily.
But when you hear a voice in a supposedly deserted graveyard, it’s hard not to overreact.
My pulse rate went sky-high and I gave a squawk of alarm.
The trowel slipped from my fingers and I lost my balance, wobbling from my crouched position to land heavily on my backside, directly on top of the pile of soil I’d just removed from the hole I was digging.
I’d got there ridiculously early, still not entirely sure if I was breaking the rules, because to be honest the website hadn’t been at all clear on what was and what wasn’t permissible planting.
I’d seen other graves with flowering shrubs beside them, and it had made me sad that everything I laid beside my mother’s plot was destined to wither and die.
I wanted something there that would grow and flourish.
‘Peonies.’
That was what the man had said, in a totally non-threatening, non-scary way, but it had still thrown me into a mini panic.
‘Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry,’ he apologised, stepping off the pathway and walking across the dew-damp grass to reach me. ‘Did I startle you?’
‘No. Not at all,’ I lied, trying to pretend it was always my intention to end up with damp soil smeared all over the back of my jeans.
‘Please, allow me to help you up,’ he said, holding out his hand.
I saw neatly trimmed nails, and palms covered in callouses.
If I had to guess his age, I would probably say early seventies, but his hand didn’t look frail, despite the smattering of age spots across the back of his knuckles.
Even so, I declined his offer of assistance, holding up both my hands as though I was surrendering to arrest. My palms were smeared with dirt.
My gel polish French manicure, only two days old, was ruined.
These weren’t hands fit for touching anyone.
‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m a bit grubby.’
That was an understatement. Filthy was closer to the mark.
If evidence was needed of my rookie status as a gardener, it was right there in the tools that were so new they all still had their price labels on them, and the fact that I hadn’t thought to pick up a pair of gardening gloves when buying the rest of my supplies at the DIY store.
I scrabbled to my feet, scattering displaced soil in all directions as I straightened up.
‘Peonies are an excellent choice,’ the man said, nodding slowly in approval and stepping back out of the danger zone. His shoes, I noted, were black brogues, polished so well they practically reflected the early morning sunlight in their gleaming leather.
‘They were my mother’s favourite flower,’ I admitted, surprising myself by sharing that information. I rarely spoke about my mum, even to people I knew well, so to do so now with a total stranger was more than a little unusual.
I bent to retrieve my dropped trowel, expecting the man to be on his way. Instead, I saw him turn towards the wooden bench nearby and lower himself onto it.
‘You don’t mind if I sit here for a moment or two, do you? Just to catch my breath.’
It would have been downright rude to point out there were probably a dozen other empty benches throughout the cemetery he could have picked.
It would have been even more inappropriate to add that he didn’t look the least bit breathless or in need of a rest. The woman lying six feet beneath the soil beside me would have been mortified if I’d voiced a single objection. So, I didn’t.
I turned back to the area I’d been digging before the man had interrupted me.
It was a bit late to realise I should probably have paid closer attention to the advice Beth had offered about planting the peonies I’d bought from her store when I’d purchased the olive tree.
She’d definitely said something specific about the depth of the hole I should dig, or was it the distance between each plant?
I freed the first peony from its plastic pot and dropped it into the hole.
I had a feeling that the man sitting on the bench was watching me.
When I’d finished refilling the hole around the vibrant pink plant, I chanced a glance over my shoulder.
The man’s face was tilted up towards the sun and his eyes appeared to be closed.
I assumed he’d gone to sleep, and after a moment of hesitation, I began digging a second hole.
I was only two shovelfuls in when the man on the bench cleared his throat. I paused, then resumed digging. He cleared it again. I turned around, but he still appeared to be in exactly the same position; his eyes were still closed.
Even so, I abandoned the hole and began to dig a new one a little farther away from the first. I paused with the tip of my trowel in the soil. The man didn’t make a sound, although for a split second I thought I saw his lips curve in what could have been a smile.
I’d brought eight plants to the cemetery, and there was a great deal more throat clearing and unspoken gardening guidance as one by one they were set into the ground beside my mother’s grave.
I got to my feet when I was done, brushing the soil from my hands and turning to face him.
I gave him a quizzical look, not sure if I should be thanking him for his help or buying him a box of Strepsils.
‘Thank you,’ I said softly, taking a seat at the far end of the bench not looking at him but at the row of neatly spaced-out, vibrant-coloured plants that my mother would have loved. ‘I’m not really much of a gardener.’
‘They look pretty good to me,’ the man said.
‘Thanks to your advice.’
He gave a charming shrug. ‘I don’t know what you mean. You did all the hard work.’
I smiled, turning more fully towards him.
There was definitely something familiar about him which I couldn’t pin down.
It came to me a moment later when he inclined his head politely towards another early morning visitor who had passed by our bench.
He was the man who I’d seen at the gates on my last visit .
. . when I’d first remembered that my mother had died.
Those words still felt like a kick to the stomach, and it was hard to hide my instinctive flinch.
‘Are you alright? You suddenly look a little queasy.’
He was certainly observant; I’d give him that. But I found his interest kind, rather than intrusive.
‘Just a little overwarm,’ I said, gathering up a handful of my auburn hair and lifting it free from the back of my neck.
For a moment the old man’s eyes flickered strangely. Then he blinked and the bland, friendly expression was back, making me wonder if I’d imagined it.
‘Have you brought water with you?’
‘I’ve got a can of cola in the car,’ I told him. ‘I’ll be fine with that.’
He chuckled softly. ‘Actually, I meant for the plants. You need to water them in.’
I flushed in embarrassment.
‘Oh. No. I didn’t think.’ I glanced around the rows of neatly maintained graves. ‘Is there a tap or something nearby?’
‘Not that I’ve seen. But don’t worry. I can bring in a five-litre container with me tomorrow and water them for you.’
I’m sure my cheeks were still more pink than the peonies I’d planted when I swivelled to fully face him.
‘That’s very kind of you, but I can’t ask you to do that.’
‘You didn’t ask, I volunteered. There’s a difference.’ His voice was firm and in a blinding flash of intuition I felt certain that this man had once been a teacher, because he reminded me of every good one I’d ever had.
‘It really is no problem, Miss . . .’
He paused for me to fill in the missing surname. I skipped past it.
‘Ellie. My name is Ellie Harker.’ And then, before I could stop to think why I did it, I nodded towards the black granite gravestone beside us. ‘And this is my mother, Elizabeth Harker.’
His eyes softened with sympathy as he nodded slowly. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you both.’
His name was Henry. He was seventy-two years old and a widower. And apparently, he visited the cemetery on a daily basis.
‘You’re here every single day?’ I repeated, as though there might have been some different interpretation to those words.
He nodded.
‘Who is it that you come to visit?’
His eyes were faded blue, but they darkened at my question until they looked even deeper than mine in colour.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said hurriedly, realising I’d probably broken every rule of cemetery etiquette. ‘That’s far too personal a question to ask a stranger.’
‘Well, we’re not exactly strangers now, seeing as we’ve introduced ourselves,’ Henry said reasonably.
‘And all the visitors you encounter here, the regulars and the not-so-frequent ones, are all here to talk to the people we’ve loved and lost. We have so much in common it feels like we’re all already connected, already friends. ’
It was a very romanticised way of looking at it, but strangely I rather liked it.
‘But to answer your question, Ellie, I come here each day to be close to the only woman I ever loved. My Bee.’ He turned in his seat and his gaze focused on a row of gravestones on the other side of the path beneath the shade of several willow trees.
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ I said.
‘As am I, for yours,’ Henry replied, his eyes going back to Mum’s plot. ‘It’s very recent for you,’ he observed, no doubt having noticed the dates engraved on the granite plinth.
‘Newer than you can imagine,’ I said.
His eyebrows were white and bushy, in the way older men’s often are. They were currently raised on his forehead, like albino caterpillars.
I bit my lip. Was I really about to confess my failings as a daughter to a total stranger, when I hadn’t even found the courage to do so to either my friends, or to Rhys? Apparently, I was.
‘I . . . I had an accident a short while ago.’
Henry sat up straighter, his face full of concern. What an incredibly nice man he was.
‘I’m fine now. Well, almost fine. But it did some strange things to my memory.’ I could feel my eyes filling with tears. They were literally one blink away from coursing down my face. My voice dropped to a hoarse confessional box whisper.
‘I forgot my own mother had died.’
His lips parted, closed, and then parted again, as though he kept finding a suitable response and just as quickly discarding it. I didn’t blame him. It was hardly something you heard every day.
‘So, for me it’s been more like a few days to get my head around losing her. I mean, I can now remember bits and pieces of what happened. I remember her getting sick, and that it all went to shit very soon after that. Sorry,’ I said, apologising for swearing.
He gave a wry smile. ‘I was a schoolteacher for forty-five years, my dear. I don’t think there’s anything you could say that I haven’t heard a thousand times before.’
I knew it.
‘Do you know what’s the worst thing about forgetting?’
Henry inclined his head, encouraging me to continue. ‘It’s not knowing if I came here to visit her during the last six months.’
‘Why would you think that you hadn’t?’
He really did ask excellent questions.
‘My mother and I didn’t always have the best of relationships. She and I clashed . . . a lot. I don’t think either of us found the other very easy to get along with.’
‘That seems hard to believe,’ Henry said gently. ‘I mean I’ve only known you for . . .’ He consulted his watch. ‘ . . . less than half an hour, and I find you extremely easy to get on with.’
I smiled at that before my eyes went to my mother’s plot. ‘I don’t think you’d have said the same thing about her, sadly.’ Up went his eyebrows again. ‘She was always very critical, very prickly.’
‘I’m so sorry, my dear,’ Henry said sadly. And it really sounded as though he meant it.