Strangers in a Garden Read online

  PRAISE FOR DEANNA MACLAREN

  Little Blue Room (reprinted as Ménage à Trois)

  ‘Little Blue Room is a strident hymn to the energies of youth… The contest between adultery and marriage, between youth and middle age, is cannily watched.’ – Times Literary Supplement

  ‘Fluent and well plotted.’ – Books and Bookmen

  ‘Written with gaiety and wit.’ – Glasgow Herald

  The First of All Pleasures

  ‘Miss Maclaren evinces a proper horror of family gatherings; and her portrayal of the incompetence of office life has enough fantastic ramifications to convince completely.’ – New Statesman

  ‘A wickedly observant novel. A winner.’ – Sunday Mirror

  ‘I liked it immensely. The characters come tumbling off the pages, extremely individualized and real. I was particularly impressed by the author’s ironic humour and her peculiar brand of sadness.’ – Susannah York

  ‘I must congratulate you on an excellent novel.’ – Livia Gollancz

  Your Loving Mother

  ‘Light,witty and observed with an acid bite.’ – Daily Mirror

  ‘Brilliantly observed, earthy and hysterically funny. It will make you laugh even while you’re groaning with sympathy.’ – Woman’s Realm

  Dagger in the Sleeve

  ‘In recent times historical novels have been few in the paperback lists. Let us hope that A Dagger in the Sleeve marks a return to a genre that is both instructive and entertaining.’ – Irish Press

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Little Blue Room / Ménage à Trois

  The First of All Pleasures

  Dagger in the Sleeve

  Your Loving Mother

  The Single File

  Villa Fleurie

  Strangers in a Garden

  a love story

  Deanna Maclaren

  Copyright © 2011 Deanna Maclaren

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,

  or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents

  Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in

  any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the

  publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with

  the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries

  concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  Cover picture: Country Life

  Cover design: Troubador Publishing Ltd

  Author photograph: Bruce Thomas

  Matador

  5 Weir Road

  Kibworth Beauchamp

  Leicester LE8 0LQ, UK

  Tel: (+44) 116 279 2299

  Fax: (+44) 116 279 2277

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

  ISBN 978 1848765 566

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Typeset in 11pt Palatino by Troubador Publishing Ltd, Leicester, UK

  Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  To Lindy, who was the first person I ever told stories to

  Contents

  ABOUT THE AUTHOUR

  FOREWORD

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PART ONE

  ARUNDELL HOUSE

  Chapter 1

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘I – I thought you’d be glad to see me.’

  ‘If I’d wanted you here, I’d have invited you. The best thing you can do is turn right round and go back to your parents.’

  ‘Miss James! Miss Laura James. Come forward, please.’

  The BEA counter clerk broke Laura’s nightmare reverie. He handed her a boarding card, and half an hour later, they were airborne.

  The man in the seat next to her insisted on buying Laura a gin and tonic.

  ‘Your very first flight? My word! Nervous?’

  ‘Nervous? No!’ Despite her swamping terror at the reception she might receive in Scotland, Laura felt she should fly the flag. ‘I feel I should be wearing a red dress.’ Everyone knew, didn’t they, that a girl wore a red dress to a party?

  He gave her the window seat and a baffled look. Then he opened his Financial Times and attacked it with the ferocity of someone barnstorming a board meeting. He spoke not another word to her for the entire journey.

  Laura sometimes wondered if she would ever work out what made men tick. Her dark amber eyes glittered with amusement at the self-conscious antics of the man next to her.

  Still, she was grateful for the G and T. She’d only spent £3 on her standby airline ticket, but she’d have to get a taxi from the middle of Glasgow. Not just for her luggage, but the tin of Dundee cake her mother had pressed on her, ‘just in case.’

  Nursing her gin and tonic, Laura thought about what she’d done, the upheaval she’d caused. She’d left her job, incurred the wrath of her parents, left a prosperous Surrey neighbourhood and a comfortable home, all for the sake of a man she’d met only once.

  It was in the summer. Adrian was down from Scotland, staying with his cousin.

  At the tennis party, Laura and Adrian were teamed in the mixed doubles. They made an impressive pair. He was tall, with a lashing serve. She was petite and nifty at net. They could both shift at speed around the court.

  They walked off victorious and, having shaken hands with their opponents, by unspoken mutual consent avoided the others. Instead, she took him next door, to the largest house in The Beeches. Her home. Laura saw Adrian registering the size of it, the gables, the leaded windows, the name: Roadnights.

  ‘My father just liked it. He’s a bit quirky like that.’

  Laura reached in the fridge for a jug of fresh lemonade and then cut two slabs of Dundee cake. Adrian carried everything out to the terrace where they settled on an elm seat, comfy with plumped up yellow cushions.

  ‘I love your dress,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks. I made it.’ The tennis dress was mint-green with white daisies appliqued round the hem. ‘I was wondering if I’d made it too short.’ She pushed back her dark hair from her heart-shaped face, inviting him, in effect, to have a good look at her. She knew already that he liked her legs. That had been obvious on the tennis court. Well it’s mutual, Laura thought, sitting next to him in his white shorts. I could do a lot with those thighs.

  They swapped notes. Adrian was from Perth. Army father, so holidays from boarding school were at whichever posting Colonel Fry was at. Originally, Adrian had aimed to be an accountant, but then he’d chucked it and was just off to read English at Glasgow university. Like Laura, he was twenty-one. His hair was dark blond, his eyes were blue. Laura gave a little inward sigh. Oh yes, she was going to like this one.

  He finished his cake. ‘What about you? Are you at college?’

  ‘No. I work in the publicity department of a department store. Regent Street.’

  ‘Enjoy it?’

  ‘
Yes, but you get paid peanuts. So I have a part-time job. Two evenings a week, at the nightschool. I’m an artists’ model. In the life class.’

  He said, as people always did, ‘What was it like, the first time?’

  Taking your clothes off in front of a roomful of strangers. ‘Well you just get on with it. Chilly, of course, and cramping holding the pose. You only get one break an hour. Still, on the boredom level it’s probably not as bad as accountancy.’

  Adrian poured them more lemonade. ‘Oh, I didn’t give it up because it was boring. When you’re doing your audit training it’s interesting because you never know where you’ll be sent. Could be a hotel in the Lake District, so you can spend Sunday on a walk. Could be a timber yard so you learn all the dodges they get up to, nicking the wood. Or it might be a fancy London restaurant. Great grub, of course, but you get put in a sweltering basement room next to the boiler.’

  As he spoke he was contemplating her house, set peacefully amidst tidy lawns, with vibrant flowerbeds running down to a tangle of trees. ‘All these trees around here. It’s like, these are houses that are meant to be seen, while keeping up the pretence they are not meant to be seen. And the gardens. Wild at the edges to create the illusion they extend across acres. Sorry. Is that rude?’

  ‘No. You’ve got it exactly. So tell me, why did you pack in accountancy?’

  ‘I just got tired of turning up at all these different locations and no-one being glad to see me. Who wakes up in the morning and thinks, oh great, the auditor’s coming today.’

  ‘And when you’ve got your English degree, what then? Teaching Chaucer to a gang of kids who couldn’t care less?’

  Adrian smiled. ‘Actually – I’ve never told anyone this before. I want to write a novel.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Don’t know. Except it won’t include a shark solicitor or a dull accountant. Look, it’s 1963 now. By the time I’ve done my degree it’ll be 1967. Everything’s changing, Laura. Music, art, books, plays. Can’t you feel it?’

  Actually, Laura rather liked things as they were.

  Adrian stretched. ‘So. I’ve told you. Now you tell me. What’s your secret ambition?’

  Laura lit a cigarette. Offered him one. He shook his head. She said, ‘What I really want is to get married. I want to know where in the world I’m going to be. And who with.’

  She explained how much she’d loved a picture book her father had given her as a child. It depicted the kings and queens of England and Scotland with potted histories of their lives. And what had struck her was the way, so often, it was just assumed that an inexperienced girl would travel an uncomfortable distance to marry and be queen of a distant country. Catherine of Aragon, Anne of Cleves, Henrietta Maria of France, queen to Charles I of England. Most of these girls could speak no English when they arrived and were marrying men they had only seen from a small portrait. They had to learn the customs of their adopted country, attempt to become loved by the people and, above all, they had to produce heirs.

  ‘And of course there was Margaret Tudor. She was only thirteen when she was sent north to marry your James 1V. Awful for her. I mean, Scotland was regarded as a completely barbaric country.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Adrian. ‘James 1V was a civilised guy. A Renaissance king. He spoke five languages, was an accomplished dancer –‘

  ‘And an accomplished lover. Poor Margaret nearly had a fit when she kept tripping over his illegitimate children.’

  ‘That was normal in those days,’ Adrian insisted.

  ‘Well anyway, there’s a strong European tradition that the woman follows the man. I think it’s romantic, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose it’s what my mother did as an army wife, and now she’s got a life of packing up and leaving.’ He paused. ‘Have you got a boyfriend?’

  ‘No. I did, but my parents didn’t approve. What about – do you have a special girl?’

  ‘I used to pretend I did, at school. A girl in a coffee bar. Her name, oddly enough, was Laura.’

  There. Another confidence. She said, ‘Why are we talking like this, Adrian? Telling each other things, when we’ve only just met?’

  ‘Laura,’ he smiled, ‘it’s because we’re strangers in a garden.’

  He went on, ‘Where are your parents?’

  ‘Been away for a few days on my aunt’s farm. They’ll be back later.’

  He stood up. ‘I’d better get changed. You know there’s the party next door tonight? May I come and collect you?’

  Laura thought this was sweet. After her bath and handfuls of her mother’s Mornay bathsalts, she slipped on a white dress, with a lilac belt cinching her seventeen inch waist. Brushing her hair at her frilled dressing table, her eyes were shining. If there was one thing she loved it was the anticipation of a party. Especially escorted by someone as gorgeous as Adrian.

  She heard the crunch of her parents’ Wolseley in the drive and ten minutes later, prompt at eight, the doorbell rang and Laura ran downstairs.

  Adrian was wearing stone-coloured flannels with a light summer sports jacket. His hair was darkly damp and smelled faintly of shampoo.

  She wondered what he thought of her dress. Her mother had insisted on coming with her to choose it and had then hurried Laura into the underwear department to buy a petticoat. Tonight, the hated petticoat remained on the floor at the back of her wardrobe, along with her old school tie and black lace-up shoes.

  In the sitting room, her father turned from the walnut cocktail cabinet and glanced with approval at the gold charm bracelet he had given Laura when she passed her A-Levels.

  He shook hands with Adrian. ‘How do you do? Will you join me in a gin and tonic?’

  Laura breathed with relief. Her last boyfriend had been a builder. When Laura brought him to Roadnights, Mr James had said, ‘I expect you’d be more at home with a beer.’

  The builder had responded with a hearty, ‘Righteho, squire’ which amused Laura because he normally didn’t talk at all like that. His mates called him Gentleman Jim.

  While the drinks were poured, Laura arranged the nest of polished tables. The large table was already in place for her father. She placed the small one near her mother’s tapestried easy chair and put the third one in front of Adrian and herself.

  Having been invited by Mr James to ‘take a pew’, Adrian sat straight-backed on the grey moquette sofa. ‘Did you enjoy your break, sir?’

  Mr James emitted a huge, ponderous sigh and declaimed, ‘One of the delights known to age and beyond the grasp of youth is that of Not Going. J. B. Priestley. Heard of him, my boy?’

  Adrian held up well. ‘Didn’t he write a play called Dangerous Corner?’

  ‘He did indeed. Now how would you know that?’

  ‘I’ll be reading English, sir, at Glasgow.’

  ‘Really? Why Glasgow?’

  Laura wished her father wouldn’t do this. Interrogate her boyfriends.

  Adrian said, ‘Well St Andrew’s is too quiet, and I don’t happen to like Edinburgh. I just thought Glasgow would be livelier.’

  ‘Mmm. And do you know Surrey very well?’

  ‘No. Just through my cousin. He lives next door .’

  ‘Let me enlighten you. In Surrey, the cars are often American, the grilles on the windows are Spanish and the burglar on the ladder is English with Welsh antecedents.’

  Laura rolled her eyes. How many times had she heard her father spout this? How many times?

  ‘That’s very original, sir.’

  ‘There’s nothing original about me, Adrian. I’m just a boring banker. But whoever wrote that – Country Life I think – he’s got Surrey spot on. You see, Surrey’s a load of fakery. This little area here, it’s called The Beeches. Know how many beech trees there are, Adrian? None!’

  Wrong, thought Laura. There’s the one in the field where the builder used to take me.

  ‘Where’s Mummy?’

  Mr James lit his pipe.

  ‘For
heaven’s sake. Only been home five minutes and she’s already got her head down the compost heap.’

  ‘I was rooting about for tea spoons. You know they always get lost in the heap.’

  Kay James was at the drawing room door. Adrian stood up. Mrs James went to shake hands, remembered she was still wearing gardening gloves and said, ‘Hello, dear. How nice to see you again.’

  Laura took the gloves to the utility room and when she got back, her father was at the cocktail cabinet, reaching for the red Martini.

  ‘John, you won’t forget the red cherry, will you?’

  ‘Kay, in thirty years, have I ever forgotten the marachino cherry?’

  Mrs James turned to Adrian. ‘Er, tell me – er’

  ‘His name’s Adrian,’ Laura supplied.

  ‘Oh yes. Would you like a cigarette?’

  ‘No thank you Mrs James. Can’t afford it.’

  She pushed a silver cigarette box across the coffee table. It was inscribed, To J.R James, in recognition of twenty five years loyal service.

  ‘You must try one of these. They’re Balkan Sobranie. Not that we bought them, of course. My husband doesn’t like abroad, so we never go. Laura’s never even been on a plane and I feel for her because all her friends, of course…’

  Laura’s face was flaming. Why did parents always embarrass you? Now she felt such a hick, especially as Adrian had flown half way round the world to link up with his parents.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Laura muttered, as they escaped to the party.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about it. They’re all the same. My brother brought a girl home once and my father was crowing because his typing speed was faster than hers. Turned out he’d had to learn in the Intelligence Corps.’

  He took her hand. ‘Don’t let’s worry about them. Tonight is all about us, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Laura gripped his hand. ‘Definitely, totally about us.’

  It was also about Scottish country dancing. Adrian’s cousin threw these parties quite often and they were popular because they were boisterous good fun, you didn’t need a partner and if you were shy or didn’t know the moves, there was always someone to shove you in the right direction.