Free The Insistent Garden by Rosie Chard Page A

door; a fresh voice jumped into the house.
    â€œMorning, Miss. This is for you.”
    The greeting surprised me, accompanied as it was by a small envelope pushed towards my stomach.
    â€œThere’s been a bit of a mistake,” continued the postman, “the letter went next door.” He smiled. “Accidentally. But it’s back now.”
    I looked down at the letter lying in my hands: just an envelope, just tape reinforcing a badly licked edge.
    â€œYou alright, Miss?”
    The postman’s name tag was pinned on his other lapel today. “Yes. Thank you, Mr. Worth.”
    â€œCall me Johnny.”
    â€œThank you. . . Johnny.”
    â€œThe bloke next door gave it to me. He said it was for you.”
    He said it was for you . Something quivered in my chest . The words ‘Edith Stoker’ had been inside my neighbour’s mouth. “For me?”
    â€œYeah. Odd bloke. Only seen him this once.” He tilted his head. “You sure you’re alright, Miss?”
    I re-read the address. “Oh, it’s for my father.”
    â€œIs it?” The postman stretched out his neck to check the envelope; I could smell ketchup on his breath. “Same difference.” He glanced at my hand. “Hey, you’ve got a splinter.”
    I looked down.
    â€œThere, on your thumb. It looks nasty.”
    â€œOh, it’s nothing, it’s old.”
    â€œMustn’t let it get old, here, let me have a go at it.”
    Without waiting for a reply he took hold of my hand and pressed the splinter between his thumbs. No one had held my hand since I was a child. It was a strange sensation, the postman so close, pressing his nails into my palm, rubbing prickly sleeves against my wrist, tickling my arm with his watchstrap. I rarely felt the touch of another person; I could not remember the embrace of my mother. I had been about five years old when Vivian had told me she hadn’t ‘gone away’ as I’d always been led to believe, but that she’d died. Not kindly, not putting an arm around my shoulder, she’d rushed out a vague description of events that she’d never been willing to explain. There’d been no one to extract an eyelash from the corner of my eye or ease a splinter out of my hand. The thorn popped out.
    â€œVoila!” cried Johnny, “Right, this won’t get the baby bathed. I better get back to my round. Goodbye, Miss Stoker.”
    I felt forced. “Call me Edith. And thank you.”
    He smiled. “You’re welcome. Goodbye, Edith.”
    The postman’s silhouette rippled in the glass as I closed the door behind him, his footsteps faded, and I was left alone with the letter. I placed it on the table and started the washing up, glancing at it every now and again. Then I returned to the table and held it up to the light. Were his fingerprints on the envelope? Had my fingers almost touched his ?
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    I turned to see my father standing in the doorway.
    â€œIt’s a letter,” I said. “For you.”
    He picked it up and slipped it into his pocket. No comment, not even a dot of curiosity in his eye. I continued to wash a plate, blowing away a soap bubble that floated aimlessly in front of my face. The envelope no longer had anything to do with me. It was forgotten. It was marked with a tiny spot of blood.

    It felt good to lie in the bath. Eleven o’clock at night was the safe time of my day when my father went no further than calling occasional instructions through the keyhole, which, I sometimes couldn’t hear. I gazed up at the wallpaper, at the pattern of seahorses swimming towards the window and remembered times that had gone before. My father had only papered the bathroom once, a stressful occasion cut into my memory of shouting, of ladder’s feet sliding across the bath and of grey, granular, wallpaper paste floating in the toilet. Mould had now bruised the creatures