‘Coffee?’
‘Yes.’
‘You want it in here?’
He nodded. He liked sitting in front of the window that overlooked the lawn and the greenhouse. The day was brightening; fat, fleecy clouds bucked the wind, their shadows passing over the perfect green. Maybe he’d take up painting, he thought, like Winston. Commit his favourite landscapes to canvas; maybe a view of the garden, even a nude of Raquel, immortalised in oils before her tits sagged beyond all hope of support.
She was back purring at his side, with the coffee.
‘You, OK?’ she asked.
Dumb bitch. Of course he wasn’t OK.
‘Sure,’ he said.
‘You’ve got a visitor.’
‘What?’ He sat up straight in the leather chair. ‘Who?’
She was smiling at him.
‘Tracy,’ she said. ‘She wants to come in and cuddle.’
He expelled a hiss of air from the sides of his mouth. Dumb, dumb bitch.
‘You want to see Tracy?’
‘Sure.’
The little accident, as he was fond of calling her, was at the door, still in her dressing gown.
‘Hi, Daddy.’
‘Hello, sweetheart.’
She sashayed across the room towards him, her mother’s walk in embryo.
‘Mummy says you’re ill.’
I’m getting better.’
I’m glad.’
‘So am I.’
‘Shall we go out today?’
‘Maybe.’
‘See the fair?’
‘Maybe.’
She pouted fetchingly, perfectly in control of the effect. Raquel’s tricks all over again. He just hoped to God she wasn’t going to grow up as dumb as her mother.
‘We’ll see,’ he said, hoping to imply yes, but knowing he meant no.
She hoisted herself on to his knee and he indulged her tales of a five year old’s mischief’s for a while, then sent her packing. Talking made his throat hurt, and he didn’t feel too much like the loving father today.
Alone again, he watched the shadows waltz on the lawn.
The dogs began to bark just after eleven. Then, after a short while, they fell silent. He got up to find Norton, who was in the kitchen doing a jigsaw with Tracy. ‘The Hay-Wain’ in two thousand pieces. One of Raquel’s favourites.
‘You check the dogs, Norton?’
‘No, boss.’
‘Well fucking do it.’
He didn’t often swear in front of the child; but he felt ready to go bang. Norton snapped to it. As he opened the back door Maguire could smell the day. It was tempting to step outside the house. But the dogs barked in a way that set his head thumping and his palms prickling. Tracy had her head down to the business of the jigsaw, her body tense with anticipation of her father’s anger. He said nothing, but went straight back into the lounge.
From his chair he could see Norton striding across the lawn. The dogs weren’t making a sound now. Norton disappeared from sight behind the greenhouse. A long wait. Maguire was just beginning to get agitated, when Norton appeared again, and looked up at the house, shrugging at Maguire, and speaking. Maguire unlocked the sliding door, opened it and stepped on to the patio. The day met him: balmy.
‘What are you saying?’ he called to Norton.
‘The dogs are fine,’ Norton returned.
Maguire felt his body relax. Of course the dogs were OK; why shouldn’t they bark a bit, what else were they for? He was damn near making a fool of himself, pissing his pants just because the
dogs barked. He nodded to Norton and stepped off the patio on to the lawn. Beautiful day, he thought. Quickening his pace he crossed the lawn to the greenhouse, where his carefully nurtured Bonsai trees bloomed. At the door of the greenhouse Norton was waiting dutifully, going through his pockets, looking for mints.
‘You want me here, sir?’
‘No.’
‘Sure?’
‘Sure,’ he said magnanimously, ‘you go back up and play with the kid.’
Norton nodded.
‘Dogs are fine,’ he said again.
‘Yeah.’
‘Must have been the wind stirred them up.’
There was a wind. Warm, but strong. It stirred the line of copper beeches that bounded the garden. They shimmered, and showed the paler undersides of their leaves to the sky, their movement reassuring in its ease and gentility.
Maguire unlocked the greenhouse and stepped into his haven. Here in this artificial Eden were his true loves, nurtured on coos and cuttlefish manure. His Sargent’s Juniper, that had survived the rigours of Mount Ishizuchi; his flowering quince, his Yeddo Spruce (Picea Jesoensis), his favourite dwarf, that he’d trained, after several failed attempts, to cling to a stone. All beauties: all minor miracles of winding trunk and cascading needles, worthy of his fondest attention.