She woke to birds.
There had been no birds the day before, or she had not heard them. She had heard the sounds of birds, in the tree by the seat in the garden, but she had not seen them. Now she heard birds, and they were close. They were in the tree outside the bedroom window, and they were making the sound that birds make when they are talking to each other about something they cannot agree on. She lay in the bed and listened.
She thought: he is in the kitchen. He has made tea.
She did not know how she knew this. She got up. She went to the window. The tree outside was in full leaf. She had not noticed leaves on it before. She had seen it as a tree with dark, small leaves, and bark that was pale. She had not seen it in full leaf. Now it was in full leaf. The birds moved through it. The light through the leaves was a different light — greener, dappled, the colour of light at ten in the morning in a place where the morning has been allowed to keep going.
She went downstairs. He was in the kitchen. The kettle was on the stove. He was standing at the table, looking at the second cup. He looked up when she came in. He said: good morning.
She said: the tree.
He said: what about it.
She said: it has leaves.
He said: I know.
She said: it did not have leaves yesterday.
He said: I don’t think so.
She said: I think so.
He put the kettle on. He did not answer. She sat at the table. He poured her tea. He sat down across from her. She looked at him. She said: have you been to the garden this morning.
He said: no.
She said: I would like to go to the garden.
He said: all right.
They walked out through the back door, and the garden was not the same.
It was still the same garden — the path of stepping stones, the seat under the tree, the long grasses, the gone-over roses. But there was more of it. Beyond the seat, beyond the tree, where the day before there had been a low stone wall and beyond the wall a field, there was now a garden. It was not the same kind of garden. It was a more formal garden, with box hedges cut low, and gravel paths, and a fountain in the centre that was not running. She had never seen a garden like this. She had seen a photograph of a garden like this, in a book she had not opened, in a box she had not opened, in the room her mother did not go into.
She stood at the edge of the garden. She said: this is not here.
He said: no.
She said: it was not here yesterday.
He said: no.
She said: when did it come.
He said: I don’t know. It was here when I woke.
She said: you woke to a garden.
He said: I woke to a garden. I thought you had made it.
She said: I have not made it.
He said: then I don’t know who has.
She looked at the garden. She thought: I have seen this garden. She thought: I have seen it in a photograph. The photograph is in a box. The box is in my mother’s room. The photograph is of a wedding. My mother is in the photograph. My mother is standing at the edge of this garden, with a man I have not met, and her mouth is set the way mouths are set in wedding photographs.
She said: I think this garden is from a photograph.
He said: whose photograph.
She said: my mother’s.
He was quiet. He stood beside her, and he did not ask her to explain, and she did not explain, and they walked together into the garden. The gravel crunched under their feet. The fountain was a stone bowl with a small lip, and there was no water in it, and the stone was dry. She put her hand on the lip of the fountain. The stone was warm.
She said: my mother was married once.
He said: yes.
She said: I have never met her husband. I have seen a photograph. The photograph is in a box in my mother’s room. The box has not been opened since my mother moved into the flat. That was twenty years ago.
He said: you were not at the wedding.
She said: no. I was not yet born.
He said: you would have been very small.
She said: I was not yet thought of.
He said: I see.
She said: I don’t know what happened to the man. My mother does not speak of him. My mother speaks of him as little as she can. I have asked her, once, and she has told me that he left, and that he left because she could not love him in the way he wanted to be loved, and that she is sorry for it, and that she is not sorry for it, and that she does not know which is true.
He said: which is true.
She said: I think neither is true. I think she loved him as much as she could love anyone, and it was not enough, and she has been punishing herself for it ever since.
He said: you are guessing.
She said: I am guessing.
He said: it is a kind guess.
She said: it is the kindest guess I have.
He did not answer. They walked through the garden. He was careful not to touch her, and she was careful not to touch him, and they walked through the gravel paths and between the box hedges, and she put her hand on a low branch of a rose that had not been there the day before, and the branch bent under her hand, and she let it go.
At the far end of the garden, where the box hedges came together in a kind of arbour, there was a bench. The bench was stone. They sat on it. She looked at him. He was looking at the garden. She said: what do you see.
He said: I see a garden.
She said: no. What do you see.
He thought about this for a long time. Then he said: I see the way the hedges have been cut. They have been cut by someone who cared about how they looked. They have not been cut for a long time. There are pieces growing out at angles. The person who cut them cared, but the person who cared is not here.
She said: yes.
He said: your mother.
She said: I think so.
He said: she cut the hedges.
She said: she cut the hedges at the house in the photograph. The house in the photograph is the house in the cottage. The cottage is the house. The garden is the garden.
He said: the cottage is your mother’s house.
She said: I think the cottage is my mother’s memory of a house she was once happy in. I think it is not a real house. I think it is the way she remembers a place.
He said: and you are in her memory.
She said: I am in her memory.
He was quiet for a long time. Then he said, carefully: did your mother look happy.
She did not answer. She sat on the stone bench, and she looked at the garden, and she thought about the photograph, and she thought about her mother at the kitchen table not drinking her tea, and she thought about the way her mother’s mouth had been set in the photograph, which was the way mouths are set when one is trying not to cry.
She said: no.
He said: no.
She said: she was not happy. She was doing a thing she had decided to do, and she was doing it well, and she was not happy.
He said: I see.
She said: I have done that. I have done a thing I had decided to do, and I have done it well, and I have not been happy. I have been very good at the not-happy. I have been very good at it for a long time.
He did not answer. He sat on the bench beside her. After a long time, he reached across the small distance between them, and he put his hand on her shoulder, lightly, the way one puts a hand on a sleeping animal. He did not press. He left his hand there.
She did not move.
They sat on the bench for a long time. The garden was quiet. The birds were quiet. The fountain was not running. The light through the leaves was the colour of light at ten in the morning, and the light did not change.
After a long time he took his hand away. He stood. He said: would you like to go back to the cottage.
She said: in a moment.
He said: I will go and make lunch.
She said: all right.
He went. She heard his footsteps on the gravel. She sat on the bench alone. She looked at the garden. She thought about her mother. She thought: I am in her memory, and she is not here, and the man who is with me is a man who has called me Anne, and I have not been Anne, and I do not know what any of this means, and I will sit here for a moment longer, and then I will go back to the cottage, and he will have made lunch.
She stood. She walked back through the garden. She walked back through the other garden, the one with the long grasses and the gone-over roses. She walked up the path to the cottage. The back door was open. She went inside.
The kitchen was empty. The table was set for two. There was a vase of flowers on the table that had not been there before. The flowers were small and white. She did not know what kind of flowers they were.
She went to the front door. She opened it. She looked at the porch. The chair he had been sitting in yesterday was there. The book was on the seat. She picked up the book. She turned it over. On the back of the book, in pencil, in a hand she did not recognise, was written: For A. — come back soon.
She looked at the writing for a long time. She did not know what to make of it. She put the book back on the chair. She went back into the kitchen.
He came in through the back door, with a bowl of something, and he saw her standing by the table, and he said: lunch is ready.
She said: all right.
She sat down. He put the bowl on the table. He sat down across from her. She said: who is A.
He looked at her. He did not know. He shook his head. She said: the book. There is a dedication. For A. Come back soon.
He said: I don’t know who A is.
She said: do you know who the book was given to.
He said: no.
She said: it was given to you.
He said: I have not been given a book. I found the book. I have always had the book.
She said: someone gave it to you.
He said: I have been here as long as I have been anywhere. There has been no one to give me a book.
She looked at him. She said: A.
He said: Anne.
She said: Anne.
He said: I don’t know an Anne.
She said: you called me Anne.
He put down his fork. He looked at the table for a long time. Then he looked at her. He said: I am sorry.
She said: I think Anne is someone you knew. Before you were here.
He said: I have not been anywhere else.
She said: then Anne is someone you have not yet met.
He did not answer. He picked up his fork. He did not eat. He held the fork in the air, and he looked at it, and he did not know what to do with it. After a long time he put it down. He said: I don’t know what I am.
She said: neither do I.
He said: I am more afraid of that than I have been of anything.
She said: I know.
She reached across the table. She put her hand on his hand. His hand was warm. He looked at her hand on his hand. He did not move. After a long time, he turned his hand over, and he held hers, and they sat at the table holding hands, and neither of them ate, and the vase of small white flowers stood between them, and the clock said three, and the light did not change.
