They talk about the garden centre and flowers. Then Emma asks about Betty and Les’s family and finds out they have a son, Ben, living in New Zealand. For Emma, it feels companionable, comforting. She thinks how much she likes Betty. How well it is all going.
Until.
They are on the outskirts of Oxford, passing a country pub famous for its curries. ‘Oh, love, we could stop and have a drink and a bite to eat,’ Betty suggests.
The faint fragrance of spices reaches them through the open windows of the car and before she can stop herself, Emma says sharply, ‘NO!’
And with that, Betty is back to startled, blinking, and Emma is silenced once again.
Sitting in the kitchen that evening, Emma goes over her day. So much was good: being with Betty; some of their conversation; speaking Italian again; and eventually, Mrs Pepperpot and all she had told them.
She glances at the images of F.G. Bealing & Son, now pinned to her noticeboard.
Yet, despite all this, she still didn’t manage to get it right: speaking across Mrs Pepperpot, and that comment about Betty talking too much. Her stomach twists in shame. And then there was that ‘NO!’ when Betty suggested they stop for an Indian meal.
Emma lays her head on her arms that are folded on the table.
Telling Will’s mother that her son had died was the hardest thing that Emma had ever done. She wouldn’t let anyone else do it. And she did it straight away.
The ambulance had left; the people had eventually gone (she had insisted on that). She returned to the conservatory– a bleached wood and glass structure off the dining room, where she and Will had sat making plans for their garden only hours before.
Later, she would recall that time between everyone leaving and the phone call as a series of bizarre still-life paintings. On the table in the conservatory, rice from their takeaway lay scattered like confetti. One chair was still overturned, near a side table where a neighbour had left cups of tea that nobody had wanted. An orange bag she had never really liked hung on the back of a blue chair. The French doors were propped open with terracotta pots filled with white heather.
Sometimes she tests herself on the images, like a child playing a memory game. For some reason it seems important to remember them all.
What she can never bear to recall is the smell of that evening: the acrid odour of urine mixed with Indian spices.
The first time she smelt curry after that night, she fell to her knees and vomited onto the pavement like a dog coughing up poison.
She remembers the call, the phone heavy as a bullion bar in her hand. She wished she could have spoken the words in Italian, the language of tragedies. But all she could offer were softly spoken English words.
So, with these, she had sat on the floor between the congealing curry and spilt wine, and had quietly broken a mother’s heart.
Chapter 28
Violet
Faded Roses
Her mother laughs with relief and surprise when she tells her the story of the interview and that despite her not being the age of a ‘sailor’s widow’, she has been given the position of junior stewardess.
Then her mother sets to work.
‘We’ll make you a wardrobe of clothes that’ll add to your years.’ Then she mutters under her breath, ‘and that will scare the daylights out of the bravest man.’
They put away her two pretty dresses, and she and her mother play at dressing up. Her sister joins in, too, but her heart is clearly not in the game. Her mother cries with laughter as she pulls a baggy dress over her daughter’s head, but her sister cries real tears.
She cannot bring herself to look at her little sister, even though she wants to gather up every sight and sound of her. So she watches her in the wardrobe mirror. The back-to-front face is easier to bear, and she manages a wink and a smile for her when she is dressed and displayed for their inspection.
The clothes are packed away, and all she has to do now is turn her hat into the sort of thing a sailor’s widow would wear. The roses that bloom on it must be put in the window to fade in the sun. Her mother tuts when she sees them there, and she asks her mother what else it is she should do. She wonders if there is something she has forgotten.
‘Bless you, child, no. You will look the part.’ She pauses to pinch her daughter’s cheek as she passes. ‘But there’s no hiding the roses that bloom here.’
Chapter 29
Emma
1,190 Carnations
