Even the master bedroom is strangely bland, as if the house is already for sale – the surface of the round-mirrored dressing table empty of Millie’s many potions and perfumes and beads and bangles and rings.
It’s as if the house is holding its breath, or I’ve caught it asleep.
The grand dining room is neat, the symmetrical old table dusty. The sun comes out from behind the clouds, and dust motes swirl in its rays, through the glass, an echo of the grand windows of the sitting room.
The fireplace is empty. Do rose clippings burn? It’s icy in here. I continue to the kitchen, apprehensive. Millie’s life-long dance with duty to her home always ended here, here where I wasn’t welcome, but every kitchen holds memories. It was here after my long days I’d sneak chunks of chocolate or instant coffee as Millie slept in our bed, here where I’d grab a bowl of cereal before I headed out early again each morning. I search in vain for a kettle. The electricity is off anyway. I turn a tap for a sign of movement, for evidence the place is more than an empty film set – for a sign that I actually passed the best years of my life under its old roof.
Yellow water gushes out. Another pipe needs replacing. I let it run clear, then find two glasses, and take them out, one for me and one for Lucy. She’s going strong. She wasn’t wrong about her love of roses. Millie loved roses in vases. She loved the romance of them, but never the hard work.
Lucy turns to me, grabs the glass with gratitude and downs it with gusto.
“Perfect,” Lucy says, a word Millie never uttered once. It’s not fair to compare them. I was a young man when I fell under Millie’s spell. I’m wiser now. Or am I?
A thorn has nicked Lucy’s cheek, the blood a red ruby. I pull out a tissue and hold it out.
“Oh?”
“One of them fought back,” I say, as I lean down and dab at her cheek. Her breath is warm on my hand. I’ve patched a thousand cheeks or more; stitched them, disinfected them, removed skin cancers and splinters, even a fishhook. There is nothing to this small gesture of kindness, nothing more than common sense. Any friend would dab at the cut on Lucy’s cheek, especially if she was doing them a favor.
But those eyes.
Chapter 30
Lucy
Dirk’s face is allkindness, his lips thin in a smile of concentration. He must have been an excellent doctor. Considerate. I’ve had some doctors treat me no better than meat.
My cheek doesn’t hurt at all. Perhaps it’s the cold, but with Dirk’s hand so close, I sense the warmth of it, of him.
Being in this winter garden is so different to being with him at the ball, when we were surrounded by strangers and I kissed him, to prove to Bart I was still attractive, despite his treachery, and Dirk was the closest thing. That kiss was a tactic, self-defence – essential, and selfish of me.
This kiss is different, so slow yet inevitable I don’t even see it coming, don’t even know if it’s Dirk’s idea or mine.
In the quiet garden, surrounded by thorns and overgrown branches, we are alone in the dead of winter.
My lips brush his fingers in a kiss of gratitude, for his company, his kindness, for this gift of a garden to borrow, for the feel of the clippers in my hand again and the promise of spring, hidden deep in the roots of the roses, so thick and old they are like giants’ fists, stubbornly alive against the winter cold.
