The French Gardener Part 25

"Oh, I do miss you, Miranda. You're such a good listener." She sighed. "You've made me feel so much better."

"Come down here, my garden will make you feel wonderful. I feel utterly transformed."

"You sound utterly transformed. Though I wonder how long it will take before you scamper back up to the city?" asked Blythe cynically. "All those designer collections. You can't have changed that much."

"We'll see," Miranda replied nonchalantly, feeling not an ounce of envy for her friend. She put down the receiver and pa.s.sed her eyes over the jug of cow parsley that sat on the kitchen table and the three baskets of lilac hyacinths Jean-Paul had put on the windowsill. The air was infused with spring.

She made up a jug of elderflower cordial and found an empty jar in the storeroom. As she walked back into the hall she glanced into her study, where her laptop sat in shadow. She didn't feel guilty or frustrated. She almost skipped through the French doors onto the terrace. The sun was out, the air was warm, Jean-Paul was in the garden, transforming the place with his own unique brand of magic. Magic she was beginning to understand.

The children had gathered a merry collection of worms and beetles, which they poured into the jar along with a few leaves and blades of gra.s.s. "Will they die?" Storm asked Jean-Paul.

"Not if you only keep them for a short while. Put them back at the end of the day. They belong in the garden." The children set off in search of more. Mr. Underwood finished his cup of juice and returned reluctantly to the dovecote. A few trees had come down in February. He took up from where he had left off before the children's laughter had lured him into the vegetable garden.

Miranda sat on the gra.s.s with her own cup of juice as Jean-Paul set about putting up the sweet pea frame with pig wire. She watched him work, his fingers rough, his nails short, the hands of a man who had worked in gardens all his life. There was something rather moving about those hands and the way his face looked sad in repose. "Have you always been a gardener?" she asked.

"For as long as I can remember." His hands paused a moment. "My life before meant nothing. I tossed it away on frivolities."

"What inspired you?"

"My mother. I grew up on a vineyard in Bordeaux. She was a pa.s.sionate gardener."

"Is she still alive?"

"No. She died last summer."

"I'm sorry. You were close?" She slowly prised him open like a rare and mysterious sh.e.l.l. She knew there was something beautiful inside if only she could get in.

"I was her only son. We were very close."

"What was she like?"

He looked at her steadily, as if weighing up how much he should tell her. His eyes took on a softer shade of brown. "She was dignified and quietly spoken. She had an air of serenity. She was very strong."

"Was she beautiful?" she asked, knowing the answer.

"She had black hair that she tied into a chignon. I rarely saw it down, except at night before she went to bed. She would kiss me good night when I was a boy and I would see her like that, with her hair down, and I thought she must be an angel, she was so beautiful. It would fall down her back shining like silk. As she got older it went gray. Then I never saw it loose. She never lost her dignity or her serenity, right up until the day she died."

"If you don't mind me asking, how did she die? She can't have been old."

"She was seventy-three. She died in her sleep, peacefully. There was nothing wrong with her. She simply didn't wake up." He shrugged and shook his head. "Like a clock, her heart ceased to tick."

"Is your father alive?"

"Yes. He lives in Paris. They were not close."

Boldly she asked the question she had been longing to ask since she first met him. "Jean-Paul, have you ever been in love?" For a moment she feared she had gone too far. His face closed into that of a stranger, pulled down and gray with sorrow. Startled, she was about to change the subject, ask him about the vineyard, coax some more memories from him, but he answered before she had time to speak.

"Once," he replied evenly. "And once only. I will never love again."

Miranda felt a wave of disappointment, as if his answer had crushed her heart. She stared into her empty cup. "Would you like some more juice?" she asked, endeavoring to break the silence and return to the way they were. But the sh.e.l.l had snapped shut.

"So you pour all your love into the gardens," she said hoa.r.s.ely. He didn't reply, but his face softened and his lips curled at the corners. "You have a gift, Jean-Paul," she continued, emboldened. "Your love not only makes the garden grow but my children, too. They've blossomed like those cherry trees. Thanks to you they don't fight all the time. They've stopped watching television. You've taught them the wonders of nature and the fun there is to be had among the trees and flowers. I'm so grateful."

"It's not all me," he said, taking a pot of sweet peas to plant beneath the frame. "Your children want to be with you and David."

"I didn't know what to do with them before," she admitted. "In London they had a nanny. I realize now that I never really saw them. They'd leave in the morning for school and Jayne would pick them up in the afternoon and whisk them off until six. All I had was bath time and bedtime. I was afraid of upsetting them so I let them watch videos when I should have read them stories and listened to them. Gus was such a problem, fighting with the other children at school, disrupting the cla.s.ses. Moving out here has been the best thing we ever did for him. He's really settled down. It's thanks to you, Jean-Paul. You and the garden."

"Gus just wants to feel important and valued, Miranda. Have you noticed how he looks at you?"

"Me?"

"Yes. He wants your approval and your admiration. Children are very easy to please; they just want your attention and your love."

"I do love them."

"It is not enough to tell them you love them. You have to show them. Words mean nothing if they are not backed up with action."

"How come you're so wise when you don't have children of your own?"

"Because I learned from a very special woman many years ago. She put her children above everything, even above her heart's desire. They came first."

"Is it wrong to be a working mother?"

"Not at all. You have to satisfy yourself as well. If you are unhappy they sense it. Children need their mothers and fathers. Gus needs his father."

"I know." But he has you. You're better than any father. You include him, inspire him, play with him, build him up, make him feel special and important. You're the one he looks up to. You're the one he loves. David only thinks of himself. Suddenly, a dark cloud of resentment cast her in shadow. "I need a husband, too," she confessed huskily.

"Tell him," he said simply.

She stood up, collected the empty cups and jug and sighed. "Life is so complicated. Love is complicated."

"But life is unbearable without it."

"Then how do you bear it?" she asked before she could stop herself. She realized that David had shifted away from the center of her world. Jean-Paul had taken his place in her affections. She loved him. She couldn't help herself.

"Because I have no choice," he replied. She walked away, turning as she reached the gate, hoping that he might still be watching her. But his head was bent over the sweet peas, lost in thought.

It occurred to Miranda that her life was beginning to mirror Ava's. The parallels were startling. Both women had fallen in love with their gardeners. David appeared in her mind like a small boat drifting away on the current. If she shouted would he hear her? Would he care? Would he take the trouble to row back?

Suddenly she was inspired to write. With a pounding heart she realized she had found her story. A great love story in the grand style of Anna Karenina and Gone with the Wind. It was right here beneath her nose. She was living it. If she couldn't have Jean-Paul she would satisfy her desire in a work of fiction.

While the children played in the gardens, she opened the windows in her study, filling the room with the honey-scented blossom from the orchard. She chose a CD of light cla.s.sical music and sat at her desk, in front of her computer screen. The music carried her deep into her imagination where her longings lay like dormant seeds in a bed of rich and fertile soil. Her fingers tapped over the keys, faster and faster as she watered those seeds with expression and felt them grow. She inhaled, sure that she could smell the tangy scent of orange blossom.

That night, as she read the children a bedtime story, Gus snuggled up against her, resting his head on her shoulder. She was moved by the transformation in her little boy; he was no longer the troubled child he had been in London. But she could tell by his frown that something was troubling him now.

"Mummy, why doesn't Daddy ever play with us?"

"Because he's very busy, darling."

"But you play with us."

"That's because I'm here all week and he has to work in London."

"But on weekends?"

"He's tired."

"I wish J-P was my daddy." Miranda felt a cold fist squeeze her heart.

"You don't mean that, Gus," she replied.

He wriggled uncomfortably. "J-P loves us like Daddy should."

"Daddy loves you very much." Gus looked unconvinced. "He would love to spend all day with you like Jean-Paul does. But he has to work in the City to earn money so we can live in this beautiful house and so you and Storm can go to school..."

"But he's going to send me away to boarding school."

Miranda took a deep breath. She couldn't deny that boarding school was on the cards for both children. "You'll love boarding school, Gus. You'll play sports all day and make loads of friends." He looked away. "And you'll come home on weekends. Only big boys go to boarding school."

"I don't want to be a big boy," he whispered.

XXVII.

Planting sweet peas, watched over by those softly cooing doves on the wall. The bliss of being alone in the early evening light.

When David came home that weekend he was tired and irritable. Miranda was in high spirits. Having acknowledged her love for Jean-Paul she had put the children to bed after reading them The Three Little Wolves in a very theatrical voice, and returned to her computer to write until four in the morning, stopping only to make herself a cup of coffee. The words had spilled out from deep inside her. Inspired by love, and Ava's secret sc.r.a.pbook, she had written prose so lyrical it was as if someone else were writing through her.

David strode into the hall enveloped in a cloud of fury. For the first time Miranda was impervious to his mood. She kissed him cheerfully, smelling of lime, basil and mandarin and announced that she had tried a new recipe for dinner. "Salmon pancakes. Why don't you have a gla.s.s of wine, darling. You look exhausted." David was startled by the change in his wife. She seemed in her own happy world, unaffected by him. He sensed the shift but couldn't guess how or from where it came. He followed her into the kitchen. She looked good, too. Her eyes sparkled, her skin glowed and she walked with a spring in her step. Her exuberance made him feel all the more bad tempered.

"How are the children?" he asked, taking the gla.s.s of wine she handed him.

"They're on very good form. Gus has asked to bring some school friends home. They're coming for tea tomorrow. It's a big step for him. He's never had friends before. Storm has invited Madeleine. They're all going fishing with Jean-Paul. He's made them all nets. I'm sure they won't catch anything, but I'm going to make them a picnic. You can join us if you like."

"I might," he replied noncommittally.

"Good wine, isn't it?" she said, taking a sip. "Fatima's son, who owns the convenience store, recommended it to me. He says it's as good as Chateau Latour."

"I hope it's not as expensive as Chateau Latour."

"Twelve pounds a bottle."

He took a sip and raised his eyebrows. "Not bad."

"Dinner will be at eight-thirty. I've got one or two things to do in my study. Why don't you have a nice bath? Oh, by the way, I've asked Blythe down next weekend."

He looked even more furious. "Why?"

"Because I haven't seen her since Christmas and I've been meaning to ask her for ages. I want her to see the house. Why? Do you have a problem with it?"

"No," he replied hastily.

"Good." She disappeared up the corridor. David was left in the kitchen wondering why everything felt wrong.

Miranda printed out the novel so far. It began the day Jean-Paul had turned up with Storm, although she had changed the names of all the characters and added a little invention to detach it as best she could from her own life. She was particularly pleased with the central character, whom she called Angelica. She could see her clearly in her mind's eye: small, slight, with a long straight nose, tousled hair the color of sun-dried hay, twisted up on the top of her head and secured casually with a pencil. Her eyes were pale green, the color of early leaves, and her smile was wide and infectious. She made her eccentric, a great entertainer with a dark, solitary side to her nature. She came to life on the page as if she already existed and had suddenly found a channel through which to express herself.

While Miranda wrote, little else mattered. She was overcome by the need to put the story down on paper and her fingers seemed to move automatically, the story writing itself. She reread the first couple of chapters and was impressed. She never knew she had the ability to write like this.

That night, while David made love to her, her mind was in the gardens with Angelica and Jean-Paul, with Ava and the enigmatic young man who dominated her secret sc.r.a.pbook. She closed her eyes and imagined David was Jean-Paul. Swept away on her imagination, more fertile now than ever before, she enjoyed his attentions. Afterward he seemed satisfied that she still belonged to him. That his world was still as it should be. He rolled over and went to sleep, but Miranda lay awake, staring at the ceiling through the darkness, her mind jumping about like a restless cricket.

In the morning she got up early, leaving him asleep in bed. Gus and Storm were in a state of high excitement antic.i.p.ating the afternoon with their friends. Miranda slipped into a pair of jeans and a shirt, not bothering to apply makeup. She tied her hair into a ponytail and skipped about the kitchen humming to herself while she made breakfast for her children.

She had just poured herself a cup of coffee when Jean-Paul appeared at the window. The children waved excitedly. "Do you want to come in for a coffee?" she asked, holding up her cup in case he couldn't hear her through the gla.s.s. He grinned and nodded. Since their conversation in the vegetable garden Miranda felt as if the wall between them had lost a few bricks in the middle. She could see him through it and he seemed to welcome their newfound intimacy. A few minutes later he appeared in the kitchen in his socks, having left his boots at the front door.

"Bonjour," he said. The children replied in French, their small faces beaming.

"Fred and Joe are coming to play today," Gus reminded him.

"And Madeleine," added Storm.

"And we are going fishing, no?" said Jean-Paul. He took his coffee and perched on a stool. "Then we will make a fire and cook what we catch."

"Do you think you'll catch anything?" Miranda asked.

Jean-Paul shrugged. "If we don't, I have a fresh salmon in my fridge."

"Ah," she replied, grinning at him conspiratorially. Jean-Paul stared at her a moment. There was something unfamiliar about her. She was all fired up as if her heart were a burning coal. She no longer looked dry and stringy. He recognized it instantly as love. Ava had glowed like that, too, before the sun went in and the rainbow faded. Things must have improved between her and David. He was pleased.

After breakfast, Jean-Paul took the children off into the vegetable garden. Miranda telephoned Henrietta, her new friend, and asked her over. They had been seeing a lot of each other, their friendship blossoming with the apple trees. Cate had tried to inveigle herself into joining them for coffee, but Miranda didn't like the way she patronized Henrietta and lately they had met in Troy's or in Miranda's kitchen instead.

Henrietta arrived, looking flushed. Miranda poured her a cup of coffee and they sat at the table gossiping. "How's the diet?" she asked, observing that it had so far made absolutely no difference.

Henrietta's eyes glittered. "I can't do it," she replied, turning pink. "I'm fed up with it. Abstaining from all the good things in life just makes me miserable. Every time I go for a croissant I see Cate's thin face looking disapproving."

"Oh, Etta. What are we going to do with you? You don't know how lovely you are."

"I don't feel it. I love a man who'll never love me back." She stopped suddenly, aware that she had said too much.

"You're in love?" Miranda asked. "Who with?"

Henrietta bit her lower lip. "I can't say. I'm embarra.s.sed. It's silly."