The Best of Friends Read online

  ‘So, pay attention now,’ Miriam is saying. ‘You know it’s sweet cicely – or chervil – by the smell of aniseed. That’s the first thing. Here …’ Miriam squeezes the bunch of stems and fern-like leaves she has in her hand and thrusts it towards my face, causing me to take a sudden step backwards that results in me crashing down onto my bottom. At the top of the bank, Jamie and Luke burst out into bellows of laughter.

  Hauling myself upright, I turn to them and shake my fist in mock threat. As I move, the sharp pain in my ankle causes me to yelp. Jamie’s laughter turns immediately to concern.

  ‘Are you all right, Mum?’

  I hate to hear the note of panic in his voice. He has been so sensitive to the slightest sign of anything going wrong, to me being ill, to our parlous financial situation worsening, since our lives imploded. His need to take care of me is simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking. He’s far too young to have such a burden in his life.

  I smile to mask the pain and shout up to him that I’m fine. The ankle hurts but I’m sure it’s only temporary and I determine to ignore it. Anyway, what with work, tennis with Dan, and my new fitness regime of running and weight-training in the club gym (now I have a free membership, courtesy of the job), I can’t possibly allow for an injury – I simply don’t have time.

  I reach out and take the bunch of leaves that Miriam is proffering towards me. Inhaling deeply, a strong aroma of aniseed fills my nostrils.

  ‘It smells good.’ I can’t suppress my surprise that a bunch of weeds could have an appetising scent rather than the whiff of damp grass and earth that I had been expecting.

  ‘Of course!’ exclaims Miriam, coming right up close to me. ‘Now, if you look here,’ she explains, intent on educating me, ‘you see the white splashes?’

  She straightens up and wipes her hand across her brow, leaving a brown streak of mud behind. ‘That and the smell are how you identify it.’

  ‘Right.’ I peer forward to take a closer look.

  ‘We’ll pick a nice handful of this and you can make a lovely salad with it,’ she burbles on. ‘How much do you pay for a packet of leaves from the supermarket? When this is here, plentiful – and free!’ Miriam is on a roll, gathering leaves and uttering exhortations with equal vigour. ‘Come on, dear, there’s a lovely clump right next to you!’

  Only minimally aided by my contribution, her carrier bag is soon stuffed full and she heads back up the bank like an oversized but appropriately shaggy Himalayan goat. I clamber up behind her, and go to find Charlotte where she has disappeared behind a clump of scrubby trees and bushes.

  ‘How’s it all going? The job? Naomi?’ she asks, casually.

  I consider for a moment before replying. The truth is that I’ve been so busy since I started, learning the ropes and getting used to being on my feet all day, that I haven’t taken much notice of her; she spends a lot of time in the office, putting in orders and dealing with paperwork, or cooking in the kitchen, whilst I am out front with the customers.

  But it’s undeniable that she appears like magic whenever Dan is around, and fawns and fusses over him like a mother over a newborn. And their interactions do seem to have a familiarity that indicates a certain level of – how should I put it? – intimacy. I’m sure it’s nothing more than a particularly demonstrative friendship. Although, on the other hand …

  ‘Well?’ Charlotte prompts, sounding anxious. ‘What are you not telling me?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I reply hastily. My face must have given me away, indicating my doubt even when I’d determined not to let on. ‘She’s fine,’ I continue eventually, deciding that the best course of action is to play the whole thing down. I don’t want Charlotte to get upset, especially when there’s probably nothing behind any of it, but I do find it hard to lie.

  I breathe in sharply before continuing. ‘I mean, she’s just one of those people who’s naturally over-effusive so her behaviour with Dan isn’t out of charac—’

  ‘Still all over him like a rash, then?’ Charlotte’s question shoots out with bullet-like velocity, cutting over the end of my sentence.

  I pause once more before replying, still not sure what to include and what to leave out.

  ‘Well, yes.’ I can’t help but grimace and unfortunately I think Charlotte sees so I hurriedly try to mitigate her understandable concerns; I can’t bear to think of her worrying herself to death about this, especially over someone as annoying yet inconsequential as Naomi. ‘But, as I say, it’s just how she is. Nothing to worry about.’

  Charlotte bends to retie a shoelace. She’s wearing a beautiful pair of lightweight, waterproof walking boots that somehow manage to look elegant as well as practical. I laugh inwardly to myself as I think that; this is the first time in my life that I’ve ever spent time admiring outdoor footwear. I guess it shows just how much things have changed.

  ‘If I question him too much about it,’ she mutters, almost as if she’s not listening to me, as if she’s talking to herself or addressing the ground beneath her feet, ‘he’ll think I don’t trust him.’

  She stands upright and looks directly at me, meeting my eye.

  ‘But you don’t,’ I reply.

  A cuckoo calls, the first of spring.

  ‘I mean, you’ve told me that you know he’s been unfaithful in the past …’ I blunder on, trying to make up for my frankness, and merely digging myself a bigger hole in the process. I force myself to stop so I can regain my composure.

  ‘Look,’ I resume, eventually, ‘you know you can trust me. And you know I’ll keep tabs on Naomi Numbskull for you.’

  There’s a long silence during which Charlotte seems to have retreated to somewhere else entirely. I wonder what she’s thinking but I’m not brave enough to ask. Instead, I tilt my head to one side and listen intently for the cuckoo. But it’s gone and all I can hear now are some squawks and chirps that I can’t identify.

  Eventually, the silence becomes unbearable and to break it, I call to Jamie and Luke. There was an awkwardness in that last exchange that I don’t like and, though I try to reassure myself that it’s no threat to our new but burgeoning friendship, that it’s just one of those discordant moments that happen sometimes, I’m worried that I’ve really put my foot in it.

  It’s always hard to judge, when someone asks for one’s truthful opinion, whether they really do actually want it. Or not.

  Charlotte is gathering handfuls of a plant that looks like cow parsley but surely can’t be, as I cannot believe this ubiquitous weed is fit for human consumption. But, when I question what she’s collecting, it turns out it is.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she laughs, ‘not only is cow parsley edible but rather tasty, especially at this time of year. Not so much in the height of summer; it tends to be tougher and rather bitter by then. It’s also known as wild chervil, and it smells like a mixture of parsley and aniseed.’

  Chervil, sweet cicely, chickweed, cow parsley … with all these ‘c’ words and scents of aniseed, I’m struggling to remember which is which.

  ‘What would you use it for, though?’ I ask. ‘I wouldn’t know what to do with it.’

  ‘Cow parsley soup is lovely. Or, even more delicious, you can make pesto with it.’

  I wander a few steps away from Charlotte so she doesn’t feel that I’m invading her patch or crowding her and begin to pluck, somewhat dubiously, at some cow parsley of my own. I remain to be convinced that a roadside weed would be a fitting substitute for basil, one of my personal favourite herbs but, on the other hand, if it really does taste good, it certainly could be another unique avenue to investigate for the cafe. If I could introduce something really on-trend and newsworthy, and increase footfall, that would certainly help to consolidate my position and make me indispensable. Which would do no harm at all, considering how much I need this job and the wages it pays.

  We harvest away in silence for a few minutes and then Charlotte stands up, elaborately straightening herself out. I’m filled with sympathy; it must be
terrible to suffer the pain and restrictions a bad back gives you. I’m very lucky not to have any such troubles.

  She looks over in my direction and suddenly the back is forgotten and she’s leaping towards me as if I’m on fire and she needs to put me out.

  ‘No!’ she cries, urgently. ‘Not that. Don’t even think about eating that plant.’

  I look down at my armfuls of frothy-headed white-flowered stalks in dismay. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask.

  Charlotte is shaking her head as she examines the contents of my arms and then wrests the whole lot away from me and distributes it to the four winds.

  ‘This is one of the most poisonous plants in the British Isles,’ she explains, frowning.

  ‘Oh!’ I am dumbfounded, and look down at my malevolent crop, now scattered far and wide. I keep my head lowered until I can feel the flush that’s risen over my cheeks subsiding. ‘So it’s not cow parsley, then?’

  ‘No, it absolutely is not.’ Her voice drops to her conspiratorial whisper and she casts a glance over each shoulder as she takes a step closer to me. ‘It’s hemlock. What the ancient Greeks used to finish off Socrates after he was convicted of corrupting the youth of Athens, poor bastard. And what Shakespeare refers to as “the insane root” in Macbeth.’

  ‘Gosh.’ My heart is thumping and my palms are sweating. ‘Well, good thing I didn’t try and make it into salsa verde for the cafe then, isn’t it?’ My voice is high and squeaky with relief. ‘Just imagine if I’d done away with half the customers … It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’

  Charlotte bends down and picks up one of the discarded stems and points out the giveaway hollow stalks and purple blotches that enable correct identification.

  ‘This is the one place I know where hemlock grows around here,’ Charlotte explains. ‘So as long as you avoid it, you should be fine.’

  I try to concentrate and focus, but I can’t see too clearly in the half-light, definitely not well enough to be sure I could get it right myself – either recognising the patch or the plant. I contemplate making some revision cue cards on everything I’ve learnt today, like one does in school to learn French irregular verbs or important historical dates.

  The fun of the forage diminishes after this discovery, which leaves me feeling distinctly deflated. The rest of the group are starting to get weary so we call it a day. Slowly, we trudge our way back along the crumbling, pot-holed tarmac of the little-used back road, gathering up the boys and the stragglers as we go.

  We’re chatting in a desultory way amongst ourselves, me, Charlotte, Miriam, and a couple of others, when I hear a car on the road behind us. This is unusual as it’s a rough, single-track lane that’s been supplanted by a parallel two-lane road that gets any driver to exactly the same destination much faster. There’s no reason to come this way unless you’re either lost or for some reason wanting to put your car’s suspension to the test. It’s more common to hear horses’ hooves than the swish of tyres.

  But nevertheless, it’s definitely a car. I glance behind me and see it, gleaming black, approaching far too fast.

  ‘Boys!’ I shout. ‘Watch out! Get into the side.’

  Obediently, my sons flatten themselves into the hawthorn hedgerow. I follow suit, glancing at Charlotte. She doesn’t move, seems to be frozen to the spot. And then suddenly she jumps up the grass bank and tries to squeeze herself into a tiny gap in the dense bushes. Her face is deathly white and dandelion leaves spill out of her basket. I see that her hands are trembling. She looks terrified.

  She’s still trying to dive headlong through the hedge as the car passes us. It’s slowed down considerably in deference to so many pedestrians and practically crawls by. It’s sleek, dark, and expensive, with enough exhaust pipes to power a tanker and tinted windows that prevent anyone from seeing inside. With no driver visible, in this quiet, isolated country lane, it’s like a ghost vehicle or the beginning of a horror movie.

  It passes us and curves around a bend. The birds begin singing again, the crickets chirrup and everything is normal once more. No mad axe-murderers. No chainsaw-wielding psychos. No headless horsemen. We are safe.

  ‘At least some people are considerate,’ I say. The only other vehicle we’ve seen whilst we’ve been here today sped past at about ninety miles an hour.

  Charlotte nods weakly. She looks as if she’s about to throw up, and is still staring over her shoulder, though the car has long since disappeared from view.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I ask, worriedly. I can’t think why she’s so upset. It might be reasonable if her children were here and had somehow been put in danger by the car, but they’re not, and mine are fine. So why so distraught?

  Charlotte coughs and takes a few deep breaths. ‘Oh yes, of course,’ she replies. ‘Just came over a bit funny for the moment there. Some weird bug I’m throwing off.’

  ‘Poor you,’ I say, pulling a sympathetic face. It seems a bit odd as she was fine earlier but viruses can do that, I suppose. ‘I hope it clears up soon,’ I add.

  At the top of the road that leads into the village centre, the boys and I detach ourselves from the group and head for home. An idea is fomenting in my mind. Charlotte spoke about the book she’s writing. Well, perhaps I could take a leaf out of her book – oh, those puns again! – and write one too.

  Food for thought, I muse, out-punning even myself.

  Later, once the boys are fed and in bed, I scrabble around amongst the pile of languishing boxes behind the sofa in my living room. Eventually, I find the one I want. I brush off the light covering of dust that has settled already and pull open the flaps. There are some reference books on top, the kind of book one seems to collect but is never sure where they came from – Greek Myths, a guide to an exhibition at the Royal Academy, a map of Cornwall that I must have kept thinking it would come in handy one day. I put them all to one side. Beneath them lie two or three heavy tomes that I heft out, one by one, and place next to each other on the threadbare carpet.

  There they are, my course textbooks, the works that should have helped to furnish me with a degree in Pharmacy and Toxicology. I’ve never been entirely sure why I’ve kept them – some kind of nostalgia, I suppose, for what might have been. I’ve forgotten nearly everything contained within them, but the sad fact is that I should know it all. If I’d completed my degree, I would do. They hold the keys to what I needed to know, before, when I had a career path in mind, a future, prospects. Before everything changed forever.

  The course has long been discontinued, the toxicology element discarded. If I had completed it, I would be one of the few people in the country to have such a qualification.

  If.

  Chapter 17

  Charlotte

  The photographs are good. I’m pleased with what I’ve got so far. Once I’ve put them all through Photoshop and fiddled around with them, they’ll be perfect. At least something is going well. The last foraging trip was horrendous, what with the car turning up, passing us on the road, deliberately slowing down to get a good look at me and making sure I got a good look at it – though of course it was impossible to see inside. This was not a figment of my imagination. This was real. Thank God I wasn’t alone out there, on that deserted country lane. But assassins don’t care, do they? They’d shoot in front of a few women and children, run over, plough through anyone who got in their way. Who or what would stop them?

  I’m suddenly struck with the thought that they might have mistaken your two boys for mine, who weren’t with us that day. What if they’d … Oh God, no, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

  My mind is running away with me and I force it to stop. I haven’t been out for days. The only place I feel safe is at home, inside my own four walls, with all the doors and windows locked. It’s summertime and hot, and Agnes and the au pair are always trying to fling the windows open and let in the fresh air but I firmly forbid it.

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sp; I can’t dispel the fear that it’s not just the breeze that might enter.

  I go back to my pictures. I’ve captured details precisely as I wanted them. They’re exactly the kind of glossy images that I imagined when I first had the idea for the foraging book. It almost feels too easy, using a digital camera and a computer programme, but that’s technology for you. Sometimes I think back to the old days of darkrooms and developing fluid. Those shadowy images that had to be so carefully nurtured if they were to come to fruition. It felt like real work, then. Work that needed expertise and dedication and perseverance.

  I developed photos with my father. He was an amateur photographer in the old sense of the world, someone who probably knew more about lenses and films and shutter speeds than half the professionals. That’s what it used to be like, to be an amateur. When I think of my dad, I try to only think of that, of the quiet of the darkroom and the smell of developing fluid.

  Smell is the most evocative of the senses. If I smelt álcool, the sugar-cane fuel that all Brazilian cars ran on when Dan and I lived in São Paulo, I would be immediately transported back to the chaos and noise and bustle and traffic jams of that giant megalopolis. I would see the piles of cashew fruits, orange, yellow, and red, looking just like peppers, and recall their bittersweet taste with the acidic burn at the end. I would hear the rhythms of samba and merengue and lambada and remember how we danced, Dan and I, to whirl all our troubles away. And the scent of jasmine will always take me back to Greece, to Athens, where the cloying, honey smell was a blessed relief from the traffic fumes and the insane summer heat.

  So that chemical aroma, if I were ever to experience it again, would put me straight at my father’s side in the makeshift darkroom he would conjure up in the bathroom. The rest of the family had to make sure they went to the loo before we got started, because once underway, nothing could be allowed to interrupt the process.