Miss Marple knows better than most that flowers can kill you. Her friend, Dolly Bantry, might have missed the clues, but Jane Marple spots that the sage leaves picked to stuff the duck have been swapped with foxglove leaves which contain the poison digitalis. Sir Ambrose might think he has got away with it. But Miss Marple and Emma know what he’s done.
The knocking is more persistent this time.
‘Emma, are you in there?’
She recognises the voice immediately and after a second presses ‘mute’ on the television.
‘Emma?’ The voice sounds anxious.
Fighting the almost overwhelming urge to keep quiet, Emma throws back the covers.
Betty is standing in the hallway, her glasses misted from the sudden change in temperature. She has a maroon anorak on and Emma finds herself wondering what animal jumper is underneath. She is carrying the kind of old-fashioned suitcase that, up until now, Emma thought only existed in Agatha Christie films.
‘Emma, love, are you ill? Les and I were so worried when you didn’t turn up yesterday and then again today. I said, “It’s not like her” and Les agreed, he said, “She’s always here ahead of time. An early bird catching the worm, that’s our Emma”. And then the flowers came, and they were so pretty, love, and oh, how they smelt, and they look just perfect on the dresser with the blue and white china. I can’t remember the last time someone sent me flowers. But there was no mention in your message of not coming back, so I gave Clem a call, and she said she hadn’t seen you since you visited her but she remembered the hotel you were staying in, but when she phoned there was no answer, although they did say you were still here. And you’re not answering your mobile, although I expect you know that without me standing here like a fool telling you. So Les suggested I come myself, because we wondered if you’d had an accident or were ill. Because there’s no denying something is up…’ Betty changes her suitcase into her other hand.
Emma starts to say something, but Betty interrupts.
‘… and you can tell me to mind my own business, but a fool can see you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, and as Les said, “Betsy, a trouble shared is a trouble halved”, and I thought, you know what, he’s right. He may not say a lot, my Les, but he has the knack of putting his finger on it…’’
Emma takes hold of the handle of the suitcase and pulls it, with Betty, into the room, closing the door behind them. Betty blinks in surprise, then puts the case down. She continues with barely a pause.
‘… So anyway, I didn’t like to take the van as Les was due to deliver some slabs, an acer and a nice lemon clematis to the other side of town, so I worked out the trains and buses and it really wasn’t that difficult at all once I’d got my bearings and with a couple of magazines to pass the time the journey was a bit of treat in its way. Although I have to say I’ve been that worried, love …’
Emma sits down suddenly on the bed. ‘It’s okay, Betty,’ she says, knowing it isn’t but wanting to reassure her, to calm her, to stem the flow. ‘I don’t know what I was … I’m so sorry … I should have sent a text … I didn’t mean you to … and Les, too …’
If she could laugh she would. A woman who can’t stop talking and a woman who can’t start. Emma knows Betty deserves better from her, but reserve, embarrassment and reluctance still drag at her legs, hobbling her every effort.
Betty sits down beside her and grabs both of Emma’s hands. ‘Just tell me what it is, love. Justsayit.’
And then she finds a way.
The Spanish words start like a rumble of thunder in the distance. Then they bank and flow, cascading into the room. As Emma spread her words out in front of her, she pulls her hands from Betty’s and with gesture and inflection she lifts the words and throws them at the walls. Angry Italian words explode over Betty’s head and words riddled with bitterness hit the window and drip down the glass as if they were rain. Softer French words curl around the legs of the furniture like smoke and cry and die there. For her finale, Emma returns to her first love, Spanish, and she lifts her head and howls her words like a she-wolf.
Betty looks down at her hands, no longer holding Emma’s. They are still held flung outwards, like a child waiting for an inspection after washing.
She looks up. ‘Now tell me so I know,’ is all she says.
This time, Emma finds the words in the language of moderation and common sense. The plain, no-nonsense English words.
‘Back in December, seven months after Will died, I found out he’d had an affair. It was somebody at his work. I haven’t told anyone about it. I can’t share it with my best friends because, despite it all, I feel it would be disloyal. They really liked Will and I want to hold on to that. Stupid, I know, but I don’t want them to think badly of him. So now I rarely contact them and I miss them. And I miss Will and I miss us.
‘But I don’t trust the memories of us anymore. All I thought I had has been torn apart. Every day I walk and think in circles until I don’t know where I am or who I am– or who he was. And all I can do is keep getting up, getting dressed, saying stupid things and fixating on this research, this florist. And sometimes it feels ridiculous and pointless, even mad, but it’s all I can hang on to. Sometimes it’s the only thing that makes sense. And everything hurts, Betty. My head, my heart, my bones hurt, and there never seems to be an end to it. And I don’t know what to do anymore.’
‘Oh, you poor love,’ is all Betty says, but the four words are too much for Emma. She thought that after the night in the tapas bar, she had no more tears. It seems she was wrong.
Betty wraps her arms around as much of her as she can hold, and Emma leans into her and sobs on her shoulder, smearing old mascara and tears across Betty’s maroon anorak.
Chapter 38
Violet
A Single Rose Petal
She worries she will not be able to find comfort in a world that feels this big. All she can see, day after day, is the sweeping breadth of the ocean moving all around her. It is like waking up in the story her father used to tell her, a tale filled with giants. She doesn’t think she has ever felt so small.
At home, the boys used to fight over who was the biggest, squabbling and pushing over inches and half inches. Sometimes an indrawn breath could make all the difference. Now she wonders how to measure the vast world she has come to inhabit.
She has crossed an ocean before, of course, on the journey from Argentina to England, but she cannot recall ever thinking about the distance she was travelling. Then, her world was fenced by her mother’s expectations; ‘Take your sister and show her where the bathroom is’; ‘Keep the boys away from that lady’s cat’; ‘Don’t wander too far’. Her world is still restricted by certain rules– where the stewardesses can and can’t go– but it feels for the first time in her life that she is walking with her head held up, taking in everything around her.
