‘About six years now.’
‘My father’s family was originally from Seville, and his grandfather was a gardener here.’
‘Here in the palace?’
‘No, I’m not sure exactly where but somewhere in the city. I wanted to come– I’ve read so much about the gardens. And, well, my father died a few years ago, but I wanted to…’ She isn’t quite sure how to explain it.
He pauses by the low wall next to her. ‘A pilgrimage?’
‘Yes,’ she says, gratefully, ‘I suppose you could call it that.’
‘Has it helped?’
‘Yes, yes it has.’
For a moment, the gardener stands staring at his feet. ‘My own father died last year,’ he says. ‘I garden in his shoes. That is how I remember my father. Everyday.’
She glances down at his ancient boots and smiles. The first thing she is going to do when she gets home is to dig out her father’s old secateurs, their handles worn where his fingers had held them.
‘You like this courtyard?’ the gardener asks.
‘It’s perfect,’ she says, her eyes settling on the jasmine.
‘Ah, not perfect.’ When she looks confused, he goes on, nodding towards the tiles on the floor: ‘You have to look at the flowers.’
She looks down at the faded tiles surrounding the fountain. Each has a dusty pink and green lotus flower in the centre. Each tile is a pattern in its own right, and together they form a much larger pattern.
‘Do you know why those are flowers but not flowers?’ he asks her.
She shakes her head.
‘Because only Allah can create living things,’ he says, ‘in each tile you will find a tiny flaw.’
Emma remembers something that her brother, Guy, once told her about Islamic art as he took her around his gallery. Each artist had to include one mistake in their work. ‘So, only God can create perfection?’
The gardener nods and bends to collect his tools.
She doesn’t see him leave as she sits staring down at the tiles. She kicks off her sandals so she can feel the tiles and brickwork of the courtyard beneath the soles of her feet. So, only God could ever hope to create perfection.The rest of us are imperfect– we are only human.
She looks out across the sunny courtyard to the banks of perfect, white Jasmine flowers and at the pots of rosemary that stand on the beautiful but imperfect, tiled floor.
Emma is not sure whether she believes in God, but she hears the message from the garden, loud and clear:we are only human.
‘Everyone makes mistakes,’ she says aloud.
She stretches out her legs, feeling the sun warm her skin as she thinks about the man she loved most in the world. She remembers her first meeting with Will, the way he looked and smelt and laughed.
And she knows she will always remember this moment in a Spanish courtyard as the time she says goodbye, and the moment she finally forgives him.
Later that evening, Emma sits alone in a rooftop bar, gazing across the city to the ancient and ornate cathedral. She holds her chilled glass of Aperol spritz up to the light and sips it. She feels that she is marking the end of something. Or maybe it’s a beginning.
She looks back on the journey she has been on since starting work in the garden centre, and thinks again of gathering all the people who have helped her together in her garden, serving lunch on a table covered in flowers. She would put Philippe to her right, Clem at his side. She can imagine them discussing the meaning of flowers and fragrances. On Clem’s other side, Tamas. She is sure they would get on. She would put Betty next to Tamas, and then Mrs Pepperpot– comfortable in Betty’s company. Next, Les and Alistair, sharing their love of history, and finally, Roberto and herself. She wonders for a moment if she could find the smiley friendly girl from the library.
Emma doesn’t think she believes in ghosts, but maybe in the long grass where the willow tree roots curl into the stone wall, she could put a second, smaller table, with four chairs around it. The Purser’s table. A place for him and for three guests: Will, her father and of course, Violet. There would be flowers on this table, too. A jam jar filled with roses, lily of the valley, jasmine and peonies.
Emma looks up into the golden sky and watches a swift soaring high above her. The truth is she will never really know exactly who it was who arranged and rearranged all the flowers on theTitanic. And that, she thinks, is the point: understanding there are some things in life that you will never truly know– and being at peace with that.
She loved her husband very much, and she knows Will loved her. But he still had an affair. After a journey that has taken her from Oxfordshire to Paris to Seville, she realises that she will never truly understand why Will was unfaithful– and she accepts this, too.
