Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Emma

White Heather

In the car on the way back, Betty goes over all that Mrs Pepperpot has told them. When eventually the car falls silent, Emma almost tells Betty about the photograph of The Nurse, but she has so little to say, and the scientist in her is determined to keep the focus firmly on the project's objective: to find The Florist of the Titanic . The Nurse is a tangent– even if Emma keeps pulling up the woman's photograph on her phone and frowning at it.

Instead, Emma wracks her brain for something to ask Betty– she doesn't want a replay of their journey to Stamford. For a moment, her mother's words echo in her head: If only you would make a bit more effort .

‘Betty, how did you and Les meet?'

Betty looks startled, but this time, in a good way. ‘Oh, now, that's a long time ago. We both come from a small town in Derbyshire. Les was working as an apprentice builder– a good, local firm– and they were doing some work at the Town Hall where I was secretary to the buildings manager. Well, one Friday I came out of work and Les was waiting for me, and he asked if I would like to go and see a film with him the next day.'

‘And you went?'

Betty starts to laugh. ‘I did, and I got such a shock.'

‘Why, what did he take you to see?!'

‘It wasn't that, love– it was Les. I think he was the first punk I'd actually seen in the flesh. We didn't get a lot of them in Glossop.'

‘Les?!'

‘Well, of course, he couldn't shave his head or anything like that– his boss would have had a fit. But in the evenings and on weekends, he spent hours spiking his hair up and he had these ripped trousers with safety pins and an old leather jacket. He looked a right sight, I can tell you.' Betty is still laughing.

‘But you must have liked him, if you agreed to go out with him again?'

‘Well, he was Les, wasn't he? He couldn't hide that.' Betty grins. ‘But it was a while before I would go anywhere but the cinema. No one could see us there in the dark. By the time I agreed to go to a disco with him, I had persuaded him to buy a nice pair of Wranglers and to stop spiking his hair. The leather jacket I always rather liked,' Betty remembers fondly.

‘I'm sorry about what I said earlier, Betty.' She can't bear it if this woman thinks she was trying to be unkind to her.

‘What was that, love?'

‘About you … talking.' Getting the words out is excruciating but Emma ploughs on. ‘Sometimes I think something in my head and when it comes out, it sounds all wrong.'

‘I wouldn't worry about that, love. We all do it.'

‘Really?' Emma asks, doubtfully.

‘Well, look at me rambling on about singing in the shower. As I was saying it, I was thinking, Emma doesn't want to hear all this.'

‘Really?' Emma repeats, with more confidence this time. She says tentatively, ‘Les gave me some interesting advice– well, he sort of made me think of it. He mentioned that one of his old bosses spoke a lot of languages and that it was what language you thought in that mattered, and so I've been trying to think in Spanish before I speak, but I'm struggling to get it right.'

‘Les is good at advice,' Betty says proudly.

An image of Les as a punk comes into Emma's head, and she laughs out loud.

‘What?!'

‘Was Les really a punk?'

Betty joins in the laughter. ‘He certainly was.' Her laughter stops abruptly.

It is Emma's turn to ask, ‘What?'

Betty lets out a long sigh. ‘I suddenly thought of Tamas.'

Emma's own laughter drains away. ‘He mentioned his daughter to me– Greta?'

Betty's voice loses all of its gaiety. ‘Oh, yes, dear. That was terrible for him and Berta. I'd say it was two years ago now. She died of cancer. She had only just turned twenty.' She pauses for a while, looking out of the window. ‘I never really know how Tamas is getting on– we only ever see him for a few minutes here and there. But I do worry about him and Berta.' She looks back at Emma. ‘I think Tamas feels he has to keep everyone's spirits up, and I imagine that can be a little wearing. On both of them.'

Emma finds herself wondering about the unknown Berta. Maybe grief has to take its own course, find its own level. She is not surprised by Betty's next question.

‘How did your husband die, love?'

Emma takes in a deep breath. ‘It was a heart attack.'

‘That's so sad, love. What was he like?'

What can she possibly say? She uses the time it takes to negotiate a busy roundabout to order her thoughts. How can she distil all those years, emotions and memories into a few sentences? Let alone what has happened since.

In the end, she decides on one story to tell Betty.

‘He was the sort of man who took the vicar out and got him drunk.'

‘What?!' Betty exclaims.

Emma smiles. ‘Yes, I know. Will wasn't a regular church goer, but they were both keen cyclists, and so they got to know each other a little. Will noticed that everyone dumped on the vicar. You can't say "no, I don't want to listen to your problems" if you're a vicar, and no one ever asked how he was or listened to him. So, Will would take him to London, where he didn't know anyone. He never said what they talked about– probably sport– but at least the vicar could just be a man having a drink with a mate.'

It's a good memory– it was one of the many reasons she loved her husband– but it is as much as she wants to say. So, quickly, she asks Betty another question, a question about flowers– a safe place to be.

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 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.