Forget Me Not

ISABEL WOLFF

Forget Me Not

Copyright

Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollinsPublishers 2008

Copyright © Isabel Wolff 2008

Isabel Wolff asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780007279685

Version: 2015-07-17

Praise for Isabel Wolff:

‘Too clever for chick-lit.’

Time Out

‘Feel-good, gritty and full of surprises.’

Cosmopolitan

‘A touching, compulsive read. Love it!’

Heat

‘A charming, funny and unpredictable novel.’

Company

‘An engaging read and an intriguing page-turner.’

Sainsbury’s Magazine

‘An unpredictable book that is darker, deeper, funnier and more emotionally satisfying than most chick lit.’

Australian Women’s Weekly

‘A generally superior confection … Wolff’s writing quirks are charming.’

Independent on Sunday

‘She’ll make you laugh out loud and tug your heartstrings.’

Hello!

‘A brilliant look at love and life.’

You

‘Wolff has a light touch and a slick prose style that makes this story flow effortlessly.’

Marie Claire

‘Pure feel-good escapism. Perfect.’

Sophie Kinsella

Dedication

For Alice and Edmund

Show me your garden, and I shall tell you what you are.

Chinese proverb.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Epigraph

Permissions

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Bibliography

Keep Reading – Ghostwritten

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the same Author

About the Publisher

PERMISSIONS

The publisher and the author have made all reasonable efforts to trace the copyright owners of the lyrics of the songs contained in this publication. In the event that any of the untraceable copyright owners come forward after the publication of this edition, the publisher and the author will endeavour to rectify the position accordingly.

‘From a Distance’. Words and music by Julie Gold © Copyright 1986 Cherry River Music Company/Irving Music Incorporated/Wing & Wheel Music/Julie Gold Music, USA. Rondor Music (London) Limited (50%). Used by permission of Music Sales Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

‘From a Distance’. Words and music by Julie Gold © Copyright 1986, 1987 Julie Gold Music (BMI) and Wing & Wheel Music (BMI) Julie Gold Music Administered Worldwide by Cherry River Music Co. Wing & Wheel Music Administered Worldwide by Irving Music, Inc. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved.

‘Another Suitcase in Another Hall’. Music by Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Lyrics by Tim Rice © Copyright 1976 & 1977 Evita Music Limited. Used by permission of Music Sales Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

‘Vincent’. Words and music by Don McLean © Copyright 1971 Mayday Music, USA. Universal/MCA Music Limited. Used by permission of Music Sales Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

‘All The Way From America’. Words and music by Joan Armatrading. Published by Onward Music Ltd.

ONE

‘It’s hard isn’t it?’ said Dad. ‘Saying goodbye.’ I nodded, shivering slightly in the mid-February air. ‘It’s sad seeing it with everything gone.’ We gazed at the back of the house, its windows glinting darkly in the late-afternoon sunlight. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have come.’

I shook my head. ‘I wanted to see it one last time.’ I felt Milly’s tiny hand in mine. ‘I wanted Milly to see it one last time too.’

I’d been down several times to help Dad pack up, but this was the final goodbye. The following day Surrey Removals would arrive and our long association with the house would cease. As I stood there, memories spooled across my mind like the frames in an old cine film. I saw myself in pink shorts, on the swing; my parents, posing arm in arm under the cherry tree for their silver wedding photo; I saw Mark throwing tennis balls for Bob, our border collie; I saw Cassie doing cartwheels across the lawn.

‘I’ll just go round it once more,’ I said. ‘Just to check … you know … that I haven’t left anything.’ Dad nodded understandingly. ‘Come on, Milly.’

We went inside, picking our way through the expectant crates, our footsteps echoing slightly over the bare floors. I said a silent goodbye to the old-fashioned kitchen with its red and black quarry tiles, then to the big, bay-windowed sitting room, the walls stamped with the ghostly outlines of pictures that had hung there for thirty-eight years. Then we went upstairs to the bathroom.

‘Starbish!’ Milly announced, pointing at the curtains.

‘Starfish,’ I said. ‘That’s right. And shells, look, and seahorses … I used to love these curtains, but they’re too frayed to keep.’

‘Teese!’ Milly exclaimed. She’d grabbed Dad’s toothbrush. ‘Teese, Mum!’ She was on tiptoe, one chubby hand reaching for the tap.

‘Not now, poppet,’ I said. ‘Anyway, that’s Grandpa’s toothbrush and we don’t use other people’s toothbrushes, do we?’

‘My do.’

I opened the medicine cabinet. All that remained were Dad’s shaving things, his toothpaste and his sleeping tablets. He said he still needed to take one every night. On the shelf below were a few of Mum’s toiletries – her powder compact, her dark-pink nail varnish, streaked with white now through lack of use, and the tub of body crème I’d given her for her last birthday, hardly touched. I stroked a little on to the back of my hand, then closed my eyes.

How lovely, darling. You know I adore Shalimar. And what a huge jar – this will keep me going for ages!

‘Mum! Come!’ I opened my eyes. ‘Come!’ Milly commanded. She’d grabbed my hand and was now leading me up the stairs to the top floor, her pink Startrites clumping against the steps.

‘You want to go to the playroom?’

‘Yes, Mum,’ she panted. ‘Paywoom!’

I pushed on the varnished door, inhaling the familiar musty smell of old dust. I’d already cleared most of the toys, keeping a few that weren’t too wrecked for Milly. But there was still a stack of old board games on the table, a jumble of dressing-up clothes in a basket and, scattered across the green lino, a selection of old comics. The debris of a happy childhood I reflected as I picked up an ancient Dandy.

Milly reached inside a little pink pram. ‘Look!’ She was holding up one of my old Sindys with the triumphant surprise of an actress with an Oscar.

‘Oh… I remember her …’ I took the doll from Milly’s outstretched hand and it gave me a vacant stare. ‘I had lots of Sindys. Five or six of them. I used to like changing their clothes.’ This Sindy was wearing a frayed gingham shirt and a pair of filthy jodhpurs. Her once luxuriant nylon tresses were savagely cropped, thanks, I now remembered, to Cassie. As I ran my thumb over the bristled scalp I felt a stab of retrospective indignation.

I know Cassie annoys you, darling, Mum would say. But try to remember that she’s six years younger than you and she doesn’t mean to be a nuisance.

‘She’s still being a nuisance,’ I breathed. I held the doll out to Milly. ‘Would you like her, sweetie?’

‘No.’ Milly shook her dark curls. ‘No, no, no,’ she muttered. The severe coiffure was clearly a turn-off. She thrust it back into the pram.

I quickly gathered a few things into a bin liner. As I did so a stray Monopoly note fluttered to the floor.

‘Five hundred pounds …’ I turned it over in my hands. ‘Shame it’s not real – we could do with some more cash right now – and this’ – I held up a battered Land Rover – ‘was Mark’s.’ Its paint was chipped and it was missing a wheel. ‘You know Uncle Mark? The one who sent you Baby Annabelle?’ Milly nodded. ‘He lives a long way away – in America.’

‘Meika,’ Milly echoed.

‘You’ve only met him … once,’ I realised disconsolately. ‘At your christening.’ I looked around the room. ‘Mark and I used to play here a lot.’ I remembered changing the signals on his Hornby train set and arranging the little fir trees by the side of the tracks. ‘He and I were great friends, but we hardly see each other now. It’s sad.’

Especially for Milly, I thought. She doesn’t have many men in her life. Not much of a dad; no brothers, just one grandfather, and Mark, her only uncle, had been living in San Francisco for the past four years.

‘OK, darling – let’s go. Bye-bye, playroom,’ I added as I closed the door behind us.

‘’Bye, paywoom.’

Then we crossed the landing into my old room. As we sat on the bed I looked up at the frosted-glass bowl light fitting in which I now noticed the hunched corpse of a large spider. It must have been there for months. Then I glanced at the window-panes, the lower left one visibly scored with large, loopy scribbles. ‘I did that,’ I said. ‘When I was six. Granny was a bit cross with me. It was naughty.’

‘Naughty,’ Milly repeated happily.

‘You’d have loved Granny,’ I said. I lifted Milly on to my lap and felt her arms go round my neck. ‘And she’d have adored you.’ I felt the familiar pang at what my mother had been deprived of.

‘’dored …’ I heard Milly say.

We stood up. I said a silent goodbye and closed my bedroom door for the very last time. Then I glanced into Mark’s room, next to mine. It was almost empty, the dusty white walls pebbled with Blu-Tack. He’d cleared it before he left for the States. He’d stripped it bare, as though he was never coming back. I remember how hurt my parents had been.

Now we went downstairs and I stood in the doorway of their room.

‘I was born in here, Milly …’

You arrived three weeks early, Anna. But there’d been heavy snow and I couldn’t get to the hospital so I had to have you at home. Daddy delivered you – imagine! He kept joking that he was an engineer, not a midwife, but he told me afterwards that he’d been terrified. It was quite a drama really …

Their mahogany wardrobe – along with other unwanted furniture – was being sold with the house. I opened Mum’s side – there was a light clattering as the hangers collided with each other. I visualised the dresses that had hung on them until only a few months ago – it had been two years before Dad had gone through her clothes. He said the hardest part was looking at her shoes, imagining her stepping into them.

Now Milly and I went downstairs to say goodbye to the garden – the garden my mother had nurtured and loved. It was only just emerging from winter mode, still leafless and dormant and dank. But as we stepped outside I remembered the flowerbeds filled with phlox and peonies in high summer; the lavender billowing over the path; the lilac with its pale underskirt of lilies of the valley in May; the lovely pink Albertine that smothered the arch. Every tree, shrub and plant was as familiar to me as an old friend. The Ceanothus, a foamy mass of blue in late April; the Japanese quince with its scarlet cups. I remembered, every autumn, the speckly green fruit with which my mother made jelly – the muslins heavy with the sweet, stewed pulp.

Chaenomeles. That’s the proper name for quince, Anna – Chaenomeles. Can you say that?

My mother loved telling me the proper names of plants and started doing so when I was very young. As I trailed after her round the garden she’d explain that they weren’t just pink flowers, or yellow shrubs, or red berries. They were Dianthus, or Hypericum, or Mahonia or Cotoneaster.

‘That purple climber there,’ she’d say. ‘That’s a clematis. It’s called Jackmanii, after the person who first grew it. This pale gold one’s a clematis too – it’s called tangutica. They’re like fairies’ lanterns, aren’t they?’ I remembered her pinching open the jaws of snapdragons, and showing me the fuchsias, with their ballerina flowers. ‘Look at their gorgeous tutus!’ she’d say as she’d wiggle the stems and make them ‘dance’. In the autumn, she’d gently rub open the ‘coins’ of silvery Honesty with their mother-of-pearl lining to show me the flat seeds within. Gradually, with repetition, the names sank in and I’d acquired a botanical lexicon – the lingua franca of plants. As I got older she’d explain what they meant.

‘The Latin names are very descriptive,’ she’d say. ‘So this little tree here is a magnolia, but it’s called a Magnolia stellata, because stellata means star-like and the flowers do look like white stars – do you see? This plant here is a Hosta tardiflora – a late-flowering Hosta – it’s “tardy”; and that big buddleia over there’s a Buddleia globosa, because it’s got spherical flowers like little globes. And this thing here is a Berberis evanescens which means …’

‘Disappearing,’ I heard myself now say. ‘Quickly fading from view.’ I thought, bitterly, of Xan.

Then I remembered again the advice my mother had given me, at twenty, when I’d first had my heart broken. ‘Jason seemed very … pleasant,’ she’d said carefully, as I’d sat on my bed, in floods. ‘And yes, he was good-looking, and well dressed – and I suppose he had that lovely car.’ I thought, with a pang, of his Lotus Elise. ‘But he really wasn’t right for you, darling.’

‘How can you say that?’ I’d croaked. ‘You only met him once.’

‘But that was enough for me to see that he was, well, what I’d call – to use a gardening analogy – a flashy annual. They make a great impression, but then they’re gone. What you really want, Anna, is a hardy perennial.’ I’d had a sudden image of myself marrying a Forsythia. ‘A hardy perennial won’t let you down. It will show up year after year, reliable, and trustworthy – and safe. Like your father,’ she’d added. ‘Always there for me. Whatever …’

I picked Milly up. ‘I didn’t do what Granny advised,’ I whispered. ‘But it doesn’t matter, because it means I’ve got you. And you’re just’ – I touched her nose with mine – ‘the sweetest thing. The bees’ knees.’

‘Bizzy nees.’ She giggled.

I hugged her, then put her down. ‘Now look at these little flowers, Milly. They’re called snowdrops. Can you say that? Snowdrops?’

‘Snowtops …’

‘And these purple ones here are called crocuses …’

‘’Kisses.’ Her breath came in tiny pillows on the frosty air.

‘And this, you may be interested to know, is a miniature wild cyclamen.’

‘Sick …’ Milly giggled again.

‘Granny used to say they had windswept little faces, as though they’d stuck their heads out of the car window.’ As we stood up, then walked across the lawn, I imagined myself, as I often did, years hence telling Milly what had happened to my mum.

You had a wonderful granny, I could hear myself say. She was a lovely, vibrant person. She was interested in lots of things and she was especially interested in gardening. She knew a lot about it and was very good at it – she’d taught herself the names of all the plants and flowers. And she would have taught you them, Milly, like she taught me, but sadly she never got the chance, because a year before you were born she died …

I heard a step and looked up. Dad was coming through the french windows, holding a cardboard box. Like the house, he had an air of neglect. He used to look well-preserved for his years, young, even. At nearly seventy, he was still good-looking, but had been aged by grief.

I never thought I’d be without your mother, he’d say for months afterwards. She was twelve years younger than me. I simply never thought it. I don’t know what I’ll do.

Now, after three years, he did. He’d finally felt able to sell up and was moving to London, just a mile away from Milly and me. ‘I’ve loved this house,’ he said as he came and stood next to us. ‘We’ve been here so long. Nearly four decades.’

I imagined what the walls had absorbed in that time. Talking and laughter; weeping and shouting; the cries of childbirth, even. I imagined us all embedded into the very fabric of the house, like fossils.

I heard Dad sigh. ‘But now it’s time to uproot and move on.’

‘It’s for the best,’ I said. ‘London will be distracting. You’ll feel happier there – or, at least, better.’

‘Maybe,’ Dad said. ‘I don’t know. But it’ll certainly be nice being so near to you and Milly.’ I noticed the silvery stubble on his jaw. ‘I hope you won’t mind me dropping in from time to time.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t say that,’ I protested gently. ‘You know you can come whenever you like. I’ve encouraged you to do this, remember?’

‘I won’t be a nuisance.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘And I’ll babysit for you. You should take me up on that, Anna. Babysitting’s expensive.’

‘That’s kind, but you’ll need to get out yourself – see your friends – go to your club, plus I’ve got Luisa now, haven’t I?’

‘That’s true.’

I reflected gratefully on what wonderful value for money au pairs are. I could never have afforded a part-time nanny – especially with the fees for Milly’s new nursery school. But for seventy pounds a week, I get up to five hours’ help a day from Luisa, plus two babysits. She’s a godsend.

‘Not that I go out that much,’ I told Dad. ‘I usually work when Milly’s asleep. I can get a lot done then.’

‘You should go out more,’ he said. ‘It would be good for you. Especially in your situation.’ He set off down the garden – Milly and I following – then he stopped to hold back an overhanging spray of winter jasmine. Everything looked so unkempt.

‘Thanks for all the sorting out you’ve done over the past month,’ he added as we walked on. ‘I know I’ve said it before, but I’ve really appreciated it.’

‘All I did was a few runs to Oxfam, and I didn’t clear everything.’

‘Well, it was wonderful just having you here. I’d have got very down doing it on my own.’

I thought, irritably, of my siblings. Mark’s in the States, fair enough; but Cassie could have helped. She only came once, to clear her own room. Not that Dad seemed to mind. But then he indulges Cassie, as though she’s nine years old, not twenty-nine. Being the ‘baby’, she’s always been spoilt.

Our feet crunched over the gravel as Milly and I followed Dad down the long, narrow path, past the silver birch and the greenhouse. I had a sudden image of my mother in there, in her straw hat, bent over a tray of seedlings. I imagined her glancing up, then waving to us. We walked on, and I assumed that Dad was taking the box to the garage to put in the car. Instead, he stopped by the bonfire patch and began to pile bits of wood on to the blackened earth with a fork.

‘I saw Xan yesterday,’ I heard him say as he splintered an old crate underfoot.

My heart stopped for a beat, as it always does at Xan’s name.

‘Where was that, then?’ I smiled a bitter little smile. ‘On the nine o’clock news? The one o’clock? Panorama?’

‘Newsnight.’

‘Oh.’ A solitary magpie flew overhead. ‘What was he talking about?’

‘Illegal logging.’

‘I see …’

‘Poor you,’ Dad said. He leaned on the fork. ‘You cope very well, Anna, but being a single mum’s not what your mother and I would have wished for you.’

What you need is a hardy perennial. Someone who’ll always be there for you. Whatever …

‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ Dad added quickly. ‘I love Milly so much …’ He reached out to stroke her head and I noticed how frayed the cuffs of his shirt were. I made a mental note to take him shopping for some new ones. ‘But I wish you had a better set-up, that’s all.’

‘Well … I wish I did too.’

‘It can’t be easy.’

‘It isn’t.’ In fact, it’s hard, I reflected grimly. However much you love your child, it’s hard bringing them up on your own. It’s hard not having anyone with whom to share the daily anxieties, or the responsibility, or the joys, let alone the long, lonely nights when they’re tiny babies, or the naked terror when they’re ill. ‘But this is the set-up I’ve got. And there are plenty of kids who have no contact with their fathers.’ I thought of Jenny, my friend from NCT. ‘And at least Milly does have some sort of relationship with her dad’ – I bit my lip. I had uttered the dreaded ‘D’ word.

‘Daddy!’ Milly yelled, right on cue. ‘Daddy!’ She’s only met Xan six times in her two and a half years, but she adores him. ‘Dad-dy!’ she repeated indignantly. She stamped her feet, dancing on the spot with frustration, then threw back her head. ‘Dad-deee!’ she yelled, as though she thought she might summon him.

‘It’s all right, darling,’ I soothed. ‘You’ll see Daddy soon.’ This wasn’t so much a white lie, as a neon-flashing Technicolor one, as I hadn’t the slightest idea when we’d next see Xan. Milly has to make do with seeing him on TV. She’s elated for the few moments he’s on-screen, then she bursts into tears. I know just how she feels.

‘Dad-eee …’ Her face had crumpled and her big grey-blue eyes had filled. My father distracted her by getting her to help him pick up leaves. I stooped to pick some up too and, as I did so, my eye fell on the cardboard box, which seemed to be full of old papers. On one yellowing envelope I saw my mother’s neat italics.

‘Good girl,’ I heard Dad say as Milly scooped up twigs in her mittened hands. ‘Let’s pick up these leaves over here, shall we – they’re nice and dry. That’s it, poppet. Now, go and stand next to Mummy while I light the fire.’