Pandora’s Box

12 Rachel

‘So, Darryl turned to me and said—you wouldn’t believe what he said to me, Rachel—he said, “If I had a face that was as wrinkled as yours I wouldn’t bother with cosmetic surgery, darling, I’d just have my whole head chopped off.”’

Cripes.

‘You don’t need any cosmetic surgery, honestly, Solly!’ He doesn’t. He’s obsessed with the idea that he’s getting older and he can’t bear it, that’s all.

‘Now, why don’t flowers like this grow in my garden?’ I’m trying to throw him off the scent of last night’s disastrous dinner party. Commenting about his pride and joy of a garden usually does the trick.

‘Careful with that. That’s Molly the Witch.’ He snaps off the delicate stem of a sunshine-petalled flower and holds it up to my nose. ‘This one’s for you. Direct from the Caucasus mountain range in the wilds of Azerbaijan.’

‘What, for real? I thought you got it from Nelson’s Nurseries.’

‘Nelson had to get it from somewhere, didn’t he? Anyway, I was saying—Justin—do you know what he did when Darryl said that to me? He tittered.’

I can imagine Justin tittering. I twirl the flower around near my face. Butterscotch, I think, I can catch the faintest whiff.

‘Young people can be so thoughtless, can’t they?’ I’m thinking about Michelle and her blasted party. But I scotch that thought. I’ve got to let it go, I really have. Shelley was waiting for her friend Surinda today. I wonder if she turned up in the end? I wonder if I should check in with her, just to make sure?

For some reason Solly looks mortified.

‘Am I thoughtless, do you think? Be honest with me, darling.’

I join him by the Calendula Officinalis. We’re in the ‘orange’ section at the moment. Solly orders his garden like his wardrobe: by colours. I have to think about this one. If I say ‘yes’—and it’s true, sometimes Solly can be thoughtless—then he might get offended. If I say ‘no’—does that put him in the bracket of ‘old people’ (who aren’t supposed to be thoughtless) as opposed to the ‘young’ ones who are?

‘Why in heaven’s name would you ask me that?’ I evade. I rub my hands together and the powdery earth falls like a tiny black dust storm all over his lawn. He’d normally tell me off for that but today he doesn’t notice.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he says disconsolately. ‘Sometimes I just think that I must be. Thoughtless and just too…fancy free. You know.’

‘Are you regretting your misspent youth now?’ I grin.

‘Oh no,’ he interjects. ‘I regret nothing of my misspent youth. I intend to keep on misspending it till it’s all used up in fact. What’s this?’ He picks up a folder that I’ve brought with me. I found it in the bottom kitchen drawer last night.

‘I thought maybe some of that would come in handy. It’s bits and pieces, articles I’ve cut out over the years about garden design. I’ve never actually got round to implementing any of it in our patch, as you know. But you might do…’

‘No, this.’ He pulls out a curling yellow folder that had obviously been stuck in there along with all the other papers aeons ago…‘Jewellery design; advanced course. Adult ed?’ He shoots me an impressed look. ‘I never knew you did all this.’ His voice is filled with admiration as he flicks through my folder, not bothering to ask me if that’s okay. Hmmm, the answer to the previous question…

‘My, you’re a dark horsey, though, aren’t you, Rachel? You did all this and I never knew anything about it. Did you finish it?’

‘The jewellery design thing?’ I shake my head. ‘I was bang in the middle of it when Shelley first got diagnosed. Nobody knew what was wrong with her initially. I thought it would just be a matter of putting it off for a few weeks. Or a term or so—or maybe a year—but well,’ I hold my hands open. The rest is history.

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