The Rose Garden

‘What did you do,’ I asked him bluntly, ‘to Felicity?’

He’d been treading lightly round me all week long, uncertain of my mood, and when he looked up now I read the caution in his gaze. ‘What did she say I did?’

I told him, ‘Nothing.’

‘Ah.’

‘You made her cry.’

He looked away and took a deeper interest in the plant that he was budding, though his tone remained a shade defensive. ‘All I did was tell her that I didn’t have the time to see an art show with her Saturday, in Falmouth. She had pieces she was showing there, and—’

‘What the hell,’ I asked him, plain, ‘is wrong with you?’

‘I’m sorry?’ Mark had raised his head again, surprised.

‘You heard. You’ve got this lovely, lovely girl who’s totally obsessed with you, and you’re too blind to see it.’

He looked down again and said, so low I nearly didn’t hear it, ‘I’m not blind.’

‘What?’

‘I’m not blind.’ Emphatic, with an edge of rare impatience. ‘I can see she likes me, and for what it’s worth, I like her, too.’

‘Then why …?’

‘Is this your business?’

‘No.’ I met his glare head-on. ‘But someone needs to sort it out.’

‘It’s sorted.’

‘I can see that. You’re all angry, and she’s crying, and—’

‘It wouldn’t work.’ He threw the words down with a hard finality that left no space for argument, but my emotions were already raw and I was in a mood to argue.

‘Why is that?’

‘Because Felicity’s an artist.’

‘And?’

‘She needs her freedom,’ he explained. ‘Like Claire.’ Then, seeing I was looking unenlightened, he went on, ‘When I was young, Claire used to go away for days, for weeks, sometimes, to do her work. She’d up and take her canvases and off she’d go. She still does, every now and then.’ He raked the hair back from his face, a gesture of control. ‘I used to hate it, waking up to find she’d gone. Some men can live like that. My father could. I can’t.’

‘Felicity’s not Claire,’ I said.

‘Felicity’s a butterfly.’ Unmoved, he pointed out, ‘She’s barely been down here a couple of years, who knows when she’ll be off again.’

I had known Mark long enough to know his body language, and from how he held himself I knew his inner conflict was a real one, but the memory of Felicity’s sad eyes spurred me to say, ‘Your famous theory, yes. The butterflies. There’s just one little problem with it.’

‘Is there, really?’ Mark was probably as close as I had ever seen him to the loss of his own temper, but he held it in. ‘And what would that be?’

‘It’s all crap, that’s what.’

‘And you would know.’

My own pain tumbled over, then. ‘I know that life’s too short to live by stupid theories,’ I shot back. ‘I know that if you have the luck to find someone who loves you, then you love them back, you don’t care on what terms.’ I used the phrase of Daniel’s though it hurt my heart to say it, and because I drew some strength from just remembering those words I carried on, ‘Whatever time you have with somebody who loves you, Mark, it should be …’ Something caught hard in my throat, and made me pause to fight it.

Still defiant, Mark asked, ‘Should be what?’

I got the words out somehow, just above a whisper. ‘Time enough.’

And then I turned, because I didn’t want to argue any more. Before I’d gone ten steps he called out, ‘Eva?’

I glanced back. I’d never seen Mark looking so torn up inside.

‘Love isn’t everything,’ he said.

I shook my head. ‘It is, you know. It’s all that matters, and I hate to see you throwing it away.’

I left him standing there, to think on that. I’d been purposely avoiding picking up Jack’s memoirs since I’d come back, even though the book still sat with patience on my bedside table, bookmarked to the place where I’d left off.

I’d read beyond that now, of course, that day I’d spent aboard the Sally, so there really was no harm in reading what I knew already. But I wasn’t too keen, any more, to learn what happened next.

It was only now, with what I’d said to Mark still nudging gently at my conscience, that I drew the curtains closed against the light of afternoon and curled up fully clothed upon my bed and reached my hand out for the memoirs.

I could always stop, I told myself. I didn’t have to go beyond what I’d already experienced. It would be enough to feel this closeness for a while, not just to Daniel but to Fergal, too, and Jack, whose voice came through the printed pages as though he himself were telling me the stories.

While I read I could imagine that the walls around me were those other walls, the bed a larger bed with posts and curtains, and the room beside me not an empty one but home to an inhabitant who paced the floorboards restlessly on booted feet.

When I approached the place where the pages I’d been reading on the Sally had gone blank I read more carefully, prepared to put the book down. There it was – the bit that I’d read last, continued over to the facing page, and then …

I stopped, confused.