The Knot Garden Read online

  THE KNOT GARDEN

  Gabriel King

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  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

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  About The Knot Garden

  The idyllic hamlet of Ashmore lies at the intersection of several dream highways of the mythical wild roads. For Anna Prescott, retreating from a doomed love affair and a high-pressure career, it offers the perfect escape – pretty cottages, picturesque canal and intriguing inhabitants – Stella Herringe, enigmatic lady of the manor, feisty Alice at the Green Man, and handsome John Dawe.

  Anna finds herself adopting two tiny stray kittens, Vita and Orlando, after their mother dies, and Pond Cottage finally starts to feel like home, but her arrival has set in motion a nightmarish chain of events...

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  About The Knot Garden

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Ashmore Dreams: Spring

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Ashmore Dreams: Summer

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Ashmore Dreams: Autumn

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Ashmore Dreams: Winter

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About Gabriel King

  The Wild Roads Series

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Copyright

  Prologue

  The day before he died, my grandfather told me how he had been taken by his own grandfather up to the big house to witness an instance of magic. At the time, neither of them had any true understanding that this was what they had seen: rather, it seemed to them no more than one of the bizarre and pointless activities that people often indulge in, and I cannot boast that I would have been any more perceptive myself; indeed, experience has rather taught me otherwise. But I have learned a great deal since the days of my headstrong and wilful early youth, more than it is comfortable to know. In particular, I have learned that while the ways of the wild world may appear awesome and strange, the ways of people – with their compulsions, their terrors and their passions – are stranger and wilder by far.

  *

  It was dawn, my grandfather told me, when they made their way into the garden. The light of the new day was shifting through indigo to the soft grey of a woodpigeon’s wing, before emerging at last as an ominous red. Shreds of mist clung to the ornamental magnolias and the single huge cherry tree, its limbs loaded with blossom as if after heavy snowfall, then drifted off across the wide lawns to disappear between brooding yew hedges, so dark in that light as to appear black, and pillared gateposts of soft yellow stone.

  Nothing stirred.

  It was the sharp complaint of a robin, perched upon the crumbing orchard wall, chest fluffed out against the cold, which broke the serenity, disturbed by the appearance of the predators. The two cats paid it little attention: instead, they stalked across the lawn, dark patches marking their progress through the silvered grass as the hoar-frost turned to dew. At a low, manicured evergreen hedge they stopped and peered through a gap.

  The old cat – a tortoiseshell – held his tail stiff and horizontal.

  The unseasonable weather had left its mark on every leaf and stem, the silver tracery of frost etching its own subtle complications into the manmade intrications of foliage. Great whorls and chains of greenery wreathed across a perfect square, crossing and re-crossing one another with obsessive intent, as delicate as embroidery upon the earth. From corner to corner the chains ran in unbroken lines of rue and hyssop, germander and myrtle, traced by pathways of red dust.

  But the older cat’s attention was held not by these curious designs, but by a figure emerging from the house beyond.

  Tall and spare, its long bones clad only in scanty flesh, it made its way across the glistening flagstones of the patio and headed for the knot garden, its naked skin puckered and goose-marked by the cold.

  The tortoiseshell’s tail twitched once, twice in agitation. Keeping well below the level of the herb-hedge, shoulders jutting, he slunk around the corner, beckoned for my grandfather to follow him, and disappeared stealthily into the shrubs abutting the orchard wall. The robin chirruped derisively at its enemies’ retreat, then itself took flight for the safer perch of a tall cedar.

  From their respective vantage points cats and bird watched the naked figure enter the knot garden.

  Once inside, the figure hesitated for a second, as if gathering itself, then began to pace back and forth over the low hedges, its movements as formalised and deliberate as any dancer’s. It turned stiffly here and made a high step there, legs thin and pale and luminous in the extraordinary light, sometimes following the planted pattern, sometimes deviating from it as if to create a counterpoint. Strange sounds – neither strictly speech nor song – spilled from its mouth. The red dust coated its bare feet.

  Throughout this odd activity it carried an object clutched to its chest. A vase? A bottle? An urn?

  Breakfast?

  Cats and bird stared.

  Reaching at last the centre of the little maze, the human seemed to have completed its private dance. Facing east with the sun in its eyes, it laid the object upon the ground. The harsh red light did neither subject any favours. Released from the shielding hands, the object was apparently revealed to be a very ordinary-looking little pot, bulbous and opaque, its glassy surface scratched and pitted from years of use. Its owner, too, appeared to have seen better days. When it crouched it did so in such a manner as to suggest many aches and pains, and the skin was stretched tight everywhere upon its gaunt frame, as if there was not quite enough of it to go around. Even so, a wealth of wrinkles fanned out across faded cheeks; deeply scored lines ringed the neck and ran down into a withered, hairless chest. Its hands were claws as it fiddled with the stopper.

  After a few moments of undignified wrestling, its elbows sticking out like a chicken’s wings, the stopper flew out and landed at its feet. Thick and viscous, the liquid inside appeared reluctant to relinquish its hold on the pot. The figure straightened awkwardly, shook the vessel fretfully once, twice, three times and at last a grudging quantity spilled out into its hand. With what might seem an undue haste, the human immediately began to rub this stuff into the skin of its face. Then it captured more of the fluid and worked it into neck and shoulders. It massaged it into wasted arms and flanks. Chest and abdomen received their attentions. The human rubbed the skin of its long legs. Bending, it dusted its feet, then worked the liquid into those as well.

  Dawn colours burned and flowed: rose-pink, rich amber, silvery-gold.

  The robin was vastly intrigued. Into the air it rose, made a circle over the knot garden and peered down.

  Below it, the figure rose, suddenly all lithe grace, made a final, hieratic gesture to the rising sun, then upended the pot. Three or four drops fell to the earth and were instantly absorbed. The human scooped up the discarded stopper with energetic impatience and inserted it firmly back into the pot’s fat little neck. The movement made its biceps contract and swell. Smooth skin glistened. Then it turned and walked back towards the house.

  The robin, bold as only a robin can be, launched itself from the cedar
and landed without a moment’s hesitation upon the spot the human had just vacated. It scratched at the ground, dipped its beak once or twice, then took off again, disappointed that the pot had contained no food.

  As it flew back across the knot garden, towards the comfort of its roost on the orchard wall, its breast feathers caught the sun, so that they gleamed as vermilion as blood, bright with unwonted vitality.

  The cats watched the bird go, eyes blankly reflective, unsure of what they had witnessed. Then, out of the shrubs my grandfather emerged, ears wary. He wandered the edge of the knot garden, sniffing cautiously. At the place where the human had entered he stopped and sniffed, puzzled. The tortoiseshell, meanwhile, began to trace a path to the centre of the maze. At last, reaching the scratches in the dust the bird had made, he bent his nose to the ground. His muzzle wrinkled. He pawed at the red earth, sniffed. According to my grandfather, he stayed there for several minutes, pawing and sniffing, the very picture of bewilderment.

  Over on the orchard wall, the robin cocked its head, fascinated by the cats’ odd behaviour. At last, the old tortoiseshell turned and followed one of the diagonal pathways out of the square, until it reached the young cat on the further side of the square. Here, separated from the knot garden proper by a foot or so of trimmed grass, someone had planted a complicated border of evergreen box. It was more overgrown then the rest, its pattern obscured. The old cat shouldered its way into a gap in the planting and sat there, as still as a garden ornament.

  *

  Cats, even those as erudite as my great-great-grandfather and his protégé, cannot read words when they are written on the page, or planted in the ground. But they can feel their meaning when they find them in human dreams; they can hear the sound of them in people’s minds.

  I know now that the planting made along the top of the knot garden spelled out the words Tempus fugit.

  Time flies.

  Just like birds.

  My grandfather swore that robin was still alive, and that it would outlive us all.

  1

  Anna stared out of the kitchen window.

  As soon as the weather’s better, she thought. I’ll do something about the garden.

  Fine rain mizzled the old glass. It fell across a pocket-handkerchief lawn, softening the bare outlines of the roses in the surrounding beds, the dwarf apple trees and straggling lavender bushes – leggy and woody and comfortably past their best – which in the summer would hum with black and gold bees. Anna looked forward to that. She looked forward to foxgloves and monbretia. She liked the garden shed, with its lapped, peeling white boards and dim quartered window. Thanks to the efforts of some former owner she had inherited a proper cottage garden, intimate and pretty; even now it was in good heart, despite the long winter.

  Past the shed, though, where a vine-trellis made a sort of tousled archway, the garden changed character, becoming a square of flat, rather bleak grass, separated by a few strands of raw new wire from the three-acre pasture beyond. Though in the recent past someone had tried out a hedge of copper beech it had not thrived, and nothing else grew there. Even the weather seemed different at that end. It was always windier there. The rain swept across it like rain across a council estate in Hackney.

  Anna thought: I wish I knew more about fruit trees.

  Almost simultaneously, staring through the arch, she thought:

  It’s really two gardens.

  As if this idea had liberated something there, a ripple seemed to go across the view; and Anna witnessed an event so odd that afterwards she was unable to describe it properly to herself, let alone anyone else.

  She saw a fox talking to a cat.

  *

  It had been raining since she woke up, on the last Sunday of the wettest April in living memory. She had been thinking about making more coffee, or putting on her Barbour and braving the damp lanes; she had been thinking about starting a cassoulet for supper. She had been thinking about Max Wishart – a beautiful man, and, if the truth were told, a complete sod – and how she would always blame herself for what had happened between them. She had been thinking: Why did I really come here? Now she found herself unable to think at all.

  A few stray gleams of sun illuminated the bleak end of the garden. The fox and the cat stood nose to nose in this anxious light, absolutely motionless as if whatever was happening between them was more important than cover or shelter. They’re touching, Anna told herself. They’re sniffing each other! Can that happen?

  The fox was the exact colour of the copper beech leaves, with a splash of cream at the throat and down into the rough fur of his chest. A patch of greyed fur ran along one flank. His yellow eyes glittered with intelligence. He must have slipped into the garden under the lowest strand of wire. He was the most elegant animal Anna had ever seen. Shining in the rainy light, he looked, she thought, less like a fox than an advertising picture of one – sharp, brilliantly clear, somehow more than himself.

  The cat was a shabbier proposition, its tabby coat matted, its white socks dull and uncared-for. It held itself awkwardly and seemed reluctant to move. Every so often a shiver passed along its spine and it swayed where it stood. After thirty seconds or so, it turned its head away from the fox and took a step or two towards the pasture. Instantly, the fox swivelled on his haunches, and, head low, teeth bared, urged the cat back towards the house. His eyes gleamed. Was he amused? The cat hissed and spat, dabbed out in an uncertain way with one front paw, then sat down suddenly and stared at its tormentor. To set against the fox’s energy and intelligence, Anna sensed, the cat had only endurance – the quiet acceptance of its own condition, its own needs. Would that be enough? She had no idea what she meant by thinking these things.

  ‘They’re animals!’ she told herself aloud, as if to correct some other assumption.

  Their fur was sodden, they were only animals; but she was afraid to make the tiniest movement in case they saw her and were frightened away. Rain pattered against the kitchen window. The wind agitated the lavender bushes. Beads of water trembled and fell. Then a further ripple seemed to spread across the scene at the end of the garden, and at this the fox raised his head to sniff the damp air, gave the tabby what could only be described as a look of warning, and made off across the pasture without glancing back.

  Anna thought: He brought her here and now he has abandoned her. Then she thought:

  How can I possibly know that?

  The tabby stared after the fox for a moment or two, then got to its feet and stood swaying, head down in the wind and rain, blinking numbly at the grass in front of it. It looked towards the house then away again, as if trying to make up its mind what to do next. Anna, as if released from a spell, ran out of the kitchen to find her shoes. She saw now that the cat was ill. She kept as quiet as she could, so as not to alarm it. But inside herself she was already calling:

  Wait! Oh wait! I’ll help!

  Her shoes were at the bottom of the stairs by the front door. She was putting them on when the telephone rang. Without thinking, she picked it up.

  ‘Damn!’ she said. ‘Hello?’

  It sounded like a long-distance call. There was a silence that reached away from her like an empty arena, a space in which things might happen. Remote ticking noises. Something that might have been breathing. Then a voice said:

  ‘Anna Prescott?’

  ‘It is,’ she was forced to admit. ‘But look, I wonder if you’d mind ringing back. There’s—’

  ‘Anna Prescott?’

  It was a woman’s voice.

  Anna thought: If I ask who she is I’ll have to talk.

  ‘Could you ring back?’ she said. ‘There’s a cat in my garden.’

  Silence.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Anna, ‘I’ll have to ring off now.’

  ‘A cat?’ said the voice.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ Anna said. ‘I’ve got to rush.’ She was already putting the phone down as she added:

  ‘If you could just call me later...’


  *

  By the time she got into the garden, it was empty. She stood at the wire fence with folded arms, a tall, dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties, wearing a man’s fleece jacket (it had belonged to Max), and stared out across the empty field. There was no sign of either animal, though she could just make out the track the fox had left, meandering through the wet grass towards the far edge of the pasture where it fetched up in a tangle of bramble and a sketchy line of hawthorn branches. A chilly wind blew rain into her face, though the sun was now visible on and off as a pale disc through a thinning in the clouds. The beech leaves rustled. Back in the cottage, the phone was ringing again.

  ‘Oh go away,’ she said. And then, ‘Damn. Damn. Damn.’

  Turning reluctantly from the field, she noticed her own footprints, so much less elegant than the fox’s, on the rain-silvered lawn. Wondering if it was too early to cut the grass, she saw how winter had taken its toll: the leaves of the espaliered quince on the south-facing wall were already sugary and grey with greenfly, the vine-trellis needed support, the garden shed needed paint.

  The shed!

  Bad weather had warped the door open two or three inches and wedged it there. Anna levered at it until it creaked and gave, then went in as cautiously as she could.

  ‘Hello?’ she said. ‘I won’t hurt you.’

  Inside there was a smell of damp canvas and weed-killer. A greyish light fell through the cob-webbed window on to a lawnmower, two or three deckchairs, and a bicycle which had seen better days. The shelves were littered with objects – rusty clippers and secateurs, some peanut-butter jars filled with nails of different sizes, those tins and packets of garden chemicals you use once and then leave to harden invincibly over the years until you have to buy them again. Every surface, every object, had collected a thin film of dust Anna couldn’t see but which she could feel when she rubbed her fingertips together. (It was grittier than house-dust, and clung less to your finger-ends.) There was a pile of dry sacks in a corner. On it, regarding her with a kind of dull anxiety, lay the tabby.