Chapter 17 17. Maureen and the Garden

"Yeah, David," Maureen said, "he's still going. He's calling back almost every night, and Rex's been great to me. Funny, I'm pretty proud of it. But Wish I knew how to tell Harold that." Lying in the big bed she once shared with Harold, she stared at the bright morning light trapped behind the curtains.So much had happened this week that sometimes she even wondered if she accidentally broke into another woman's body. "He'd come back with postcards and sometimes a little gift. He seemed to have a pen for pens." Maureen paused, worried that he'd offended David, who hadn't responded. "I love you," she said.After saying this, he still didn't make a sound. "I should let you go," she said at last.

It wasn't a moment of relief to end the conversation, but it was the first time she felt uncomfortable talking to her son.She had expected the two of them to be closer after Harold left, but instead of spending hours telling him how she was doing, she found it better to go about her business.Sometimes when she did talk about how she was doing, she would suddenly realize that he wasn't even listening.She found a reason not to tidy his room, not even wondering if he would come to see her. That trip to Slaton Beach was her turning point.That night she fumbled the door key into the lock, and after shouting thanks to Rex through the fence, she walked up the stairs with her shoes on, went straight to the master room, and slept on the bed without taking off her clothes.In the middle of the night, she suddenly realized where she was with a trace of horror, and then she breathed a sigh of relief.it's finally over.Except for the heavy pain, she couldn't think of anything that was over.Pulling back the duvet, she curled up on Harold's pillow, which smelled of Pear soap and him.After waking up, she felt a sense of relief spreading all over her body like hot water.

Then she began to move her own clothes in piles from the guest room into the closet, which hung on the other side of Harold's clothes.She set herself a challenge: For each day he was away, she would try something new.She put the pile of outstanding bills and checkbooks on the kitchen table and started cleaning.She called Harold's insurance company to make sure his health insurance hadn't expired.She took the car to the garage and checked the tire pressure.She even tied an old silk scarf in her hair, as before.When Rex suddenly appeared over the garden fence, she reached out like lightning and tore the scarf off.

"I sure looked ridiculous," she said. "Not at all, Maureen." It seems he has something on his mind.They talked about the garden, and where Harold had been, and then he said suddenly that he remembered something, and walked away quietly.Maureen asked him if everything was all right, and he just nodded. "Just wait a minute," he told her, "I have a plan." Subconsciously, Maureen felt that it should have something to do with her. While cleaning the window sill in her bedroom the previous week, she had inadvertently noticed that Rex had received a cardboard-wrapped tube package.A day later at the same location she saw Rex trudging over with a window-sized panel, concealed and covered with a plaid blanket.Maureen got curious and waited in the garden, even taking out a basket of dry cleaning and hanging it on the clothesline, but Rex didn't come out all afternoon.

She knocked on the door to confirm if he still had milk, and he said through a narrow door crack that he still had milk, and that he wanted to rest early.But when Maureen went out to inspect the back garden at eleven o'clock, the lights in Rex's kitchen were still on, and he could be vaguely seen knocking. The next day, Maureen suddenly heard someone knocking on the mailbox. She hurried to the hall and found a strange square object outside the frosted glass of the door, with a round shape like a human head protruding from it.Opening the door, she found Rex holding a large square brown package tied with a bow. "May I come in?" He could barely get the words out.

Maureen couldn't think of a time when the last surprise was anything other than a birthday or Christmas present.She ushered him into the drawing room and asked him if he would like tea or coffee.Rex insisted that there was no time to drink, and that she must open presents right away. "Tear off the wrapping paper, Maureen," he said. She can't tear it apart.It's so exciting.She tore off a corner of the brown wrapping paper and found that it was hard wood, and tore off the other corner, which was still wood.Rex clasped his hands in his lap, and every time she tore off a small piece, his feet lifted, as if jumping an invisible rope, panting.

"Come on, come on," he said. "what exactly is it?" "Pull it out and go on. Take a good look, Maureen. I made it just for you." It was a huge map of England nailed to cardboard, with two pegs attached to the back so it could be hung on the wall.He pointed to where Kingsbridge was, and Maureen saw a thumbtack with a blue wire wrapped around it leading to Lordesway, where there was also a thumbtack, and then the blue wire went to South Brent, and then Connect to Buckfast.Harold's journey was marked with blue lines and pushpins all the way to the south of Bath.At the top of England, Berwickshire is marked with green highlighter and a small handmade flag.There was even a box of thumbtacks for her to tack up postcards from Harold.

"I think you could pin those postcards in places where Harold wouldn't go," Rex said, "like Norfolk and South Wales. I think it would work well." Rex hammered nails into the kitchen wall and hung up the map with Maureen.The map is right next to the table, and Maureen can see where Harold is at any time, and can map the rest of his journey.The map was a little crooked, because Rex wasn't very good with a power drill, and the first nail went straight into the wall.But if she tilted her head slightly, she could hardly see anything.Besides, she told Rex, it didn't matter that it wasn't perfect.

This, for Maureen, was also a brand new adventure.After the map was displayed, they would go out for a walk every day.She accompanies him to see Elizabeth in the cemetery with roses, then stops for a cup of tea in Hope Cove.They went to Salcomb to take a boat across the estuary, and one day he drove her to Brixham to buy crabs.They walk down the Esplanade to Baybury and sample fresh shellfish at the Oyster House.He said it was good for his health to go for a walk, and he hoped it would not cause her any trouble, so she hurriedly assured her that a distraction would only be good for her and not bad for her.They sat down in front of the sand dunes in Bantham, and Maureen began to describe how she and Harold had moved to Kingsbridge forty-five years ago when they first married.Everything was hopeful back then.

"We don't know each other, but it doesn't matter, we have each other enough. Harold had a difficult childhood, I think he loved his mother very much, and his father must have been completely destroyed for some reason when he came back from the army. Broken down. I want to be the happiness he never had, to give him a home. I learn to cook, make curtains, find wooden boxes to dismantle and nail into a coffee table. Harold opened a block for me in front of the house I grew everything, potatoes, beans, carrots.” She laughed, “We were so happy.” It was such a joy to describe the past, and Maureen wished she had more words. "Very happy," she repeated.

The tide was far out, the sand glistened in the sun, and there was a noticeable distance between the shore and Bora.People set up colorful windbreaks and tents, puppies are jumping on the sand, chasing branches and balls, children are running around on the beach with small shovels and small buckets, and the sea is shining in the distance Bright.She remembered how David had wanted a puppy when he was a kid, and for a moment she wondered if that was the answer.But impossible.Maureen fumbled for her handkerchief and told Rex to leave her alone.Perhaps it was because, back at Bantham years later, she blamed Harold again and again for David's near-drowning. "I've said a lot of insincere things. It's like, even though I'm thinking Harold's good, it's not the same as saying it. It's like constantly denying him is the only thing we can do between us. He came to talk to me. Say a word, and I reply 'I don't think so' without even listening to the sentence." “I get mad at Elizabeth every time she forgets to put the cap on her toothbrush. Now I throw the cap off as soon as I open a new tube, and I don’t even want to keep the cap.” She laughs.His hand was next to hers, and she raised it to brush the still soft skin of her neck. "When I was young, when I saw people our age, I felt that my life would be in order. I never thought that it would be this chaotic at the age of sixty-three." There were so many things in the past, and Maureen wished she had chosen differently.Lying on the bed in the morning light, she yawned and stretched, feeling the size of the mattress with her outstretched hands and feet, even extending to the cold corner of the bed.Then he moved his fingers toward himself, touching his cheeks, his throat, the contours of his breasts.She imagined Harold's hands on her waist, his lips on hers.Her skin has been loose, and her fingertips have lost the sensitivity of a young woman, but her heart is still beating wildly, and her blood is rushing.There was the click of Rex's front door closing outside, and she sat up suddenly.After a while his car sounded and drove away.She retracted into the feather quilt again, and took the quilt into her arms, like hugging a person. The closet door was ajar, revealing a sleeve of the dress Harold had left behind.She felt another familiar sting and tossed the feather aside, looking for something to distract her.She found the perfect distraction while passing the closet. For years, Maureen loved to organize her clothes by season, just like her mother.Winter clothes and thick pullovers are placed on one end of the clothes rail, while summer clothes must be hung on the other end with light coats and cardigans.I was busy hanging my clothes back in the closet before, but I didn't notice that Harold's clothes were hung in a mess, and there was no distinction between weather, fabrics, and textures.So she turned out one by one, threw away what he could no longer wear, and arranged the rest neatly. Harold's overalls were baggy at the lapels, and she took them out and put them on the bed.There are a few woolen sweaters that are thin at the elbow and need to be mended.Flipping through a pile of white and checked shirts, she found the tweed jacket he had bought for David's graduation.There seemed to be someone beating on her heart, as if something was locked inside.Haven't seen this coat in years. Maureen took the coat off the hanger and unfolded it before her eyes.Twenty years passed by, and she saw the two of them wearing uncomfortable new clothes, obediently standing outside the King's Chapel in Cambridge University, waiting at the place David designated.She saw that she was wearing a satin dress, and thinking about it now, the shoulder pads were the color of boiled shellfish, which might have matched her face at the time. She saw Harold's shoulders arched, his arms stiff, as though the sleeves of his coat were made of wood. It was all his fault, she complained at the time: He should have double-checked the notice, because nervousness made her too negligent.They waited for more than two hours, and finally found that they were waiting in the wrong place.The entire graduation ceremony was missed.Although David apologized when he bumped into them outside the tavern (which was forgivable, after all, it was a festive day worth celebrating with friends), he still didn't take them on the long-promised paddleboat excursion.The couple were silent on the drive back to Kingsbridge from Cambridge. "He said he was going out for a walk this holiday," she finally said. "Fine." "Just a transition, and then I'll get a job." "Fine," he added. Tears of frustration lodged in her throat like a solid mass. "At least he got a degree," she exploded. "At least he's done something in his life." David unexpectedly returned home two weeks later.He didn't explain why he had come back so soon, but he was carrying a brown suitcase that thumped dully against the banister.He often pulled his mother aside and asked her for money. "College has worn him out," she'd say when he didn't get up in the morning.Or "He just hasn't found the perfect job yet."He missed interview after interview, and when he did, he always forgot to wash and comb his hair. "David is so smart," she said.Harold would give his usual little nod, and she'd feel the urge to yell at him.In fact, most of the time, their children can barely stand upright.Sometimes she would sneak a glance at him and couldn't even believe that he had graduated.Seeing David, you can see the past, and see so many incoherent things that eventually even the things you are most sure of start to fall apart.But then she would feel guilty about her doubts about the child and blame Harold instead.At least your son has a future, she said.At least he still has hair...everything that makes Harold lose control.Gradually the money in her wallet began to disappear, first in steel, then in paper money.She pretended nothing happened. Over the years, she had asked David more than once what else he could do, and David always said enough was enough.After all, she was the one who drew up suitable positions in the newspaper's job-seeking column, and she was the one who made him an appointment with a doctor and drove him there.Maureen remembered how he threw the prescription into her lap as if it had nothing to do with him. "So much medicine," she said, "what did the doctor say? What did he say was the problem?" He just shrugged and lit another cigarette. But at least there is still a little progress.She listened carefully at night, and David seemed to have fallen asleep.He no longer wakes up for breakfast at four in the morning, wanders outside in his nightgown, or fills the room with the sickly sweet smell of cigarettes.He was convinced he would find a job. She saw David shave his head again the day he decided to enlist.His long, curly hair was all over the toilet, and there were scars from trembling hands on his scalp.Seeing the hurt her beloved son had suffered made her want to howl out loud. Maureen curled up on the bed and buried her face in her hands.What else can they do? "Oh, Harold." She stroked the rough grain of his English gentleman's coat.Suddenly there was an urge to ask her to do something completely different.It was as if a force passed through her body, forcing her to stand up again.She found the shrimp-coloured satin dress she wore to graduation and hung it in the middle of the closet, then hung Harold's coat next to it, looking lonely and distant.She picked up his sleeve and put it on the pink shoulder pad. Then she hung up each of her dresses paired with Harold's.She tucked the sleeves of her blouse into the pockets of his blue suit, the hem of her skirt wrapped around the men's trouser legs, and the other skirt was tucked into the bosom of his blue cardigan.It was as if there were many invisible Maureen and Harold hanging out in her closet, just waiting for the chance to step out.She laughed, then cried again, but she didn't change the clothes back. The sound of Rex's engine brought her back to reality, and she soon heard the sound of her front garden.Maureen raised the curtains and saw Rex use the rope to divide the lawn into rectangles, and then began to shovel with the shovel. He looked up and waved to her. "If we're lucky, we might have time to grow runner beans." Maureen, in Harold's old shirt, had planted twenty tiny bean sprouts, carefully tying them to bamboo trellises, being careful not to damage their soft green roots.She gently compacted the soil on the ground and watered it.At first she always looked at them with concern, fearing that they would be pecked off by seagulls and frozen to death by the frost.But after a day of steadfast observation, her worries disappeared.As the days passed, the roots of the seedlings grew stronger and new leaves grew.She planted a few rows of lettuce, a few rows of beetroot, a few rows of carrots, and cleared the gravel from the decorative pond. It feels good to have dirt stuck between your nails.It feels good to re-parent something.