Five Winters: A Novel by Kitty Johnson

Author:Kitty Johnson [Johnson, Kitty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2023-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

17

On the Saturday after the session, I went to Enfield to help Sylvia do some jobs in the garden. Richard had always done the majority of the gardening, but occasionally he and Sylvia did it together. Now it was all left to Sylvia. Mark had suggested she employ a gardener, but Sylvia didn’t want to, and I didn’t blame her. A stranger being there would have emphasised Richard’s absence. Besides, I was more than happy to help out. Working on the borders Richard had dug and fertilised so carefully was like paying tribute to him. And anyway, it was good to see Sylvia.

We worked together companionably for an hour or so, talking about this and that, our conversation occasionally dwindling into a relaxed silence, the way it can when you’re with those you’re closest to. A tame robin made us smile when it hopped onto the garden fence, completely undaunted by our presence. And when we heard the tinkling music of an ice-cream van driving down the road, we both laughed out loud.

“He’s hopeful in December,” Sylvia said, laughing.

“Mark and Rosie would have been up for it,” I said, and she laughed again.

“They would. You, not so much. They always had a sweeter tooth than you.”

I pictured the three of us on hot summer days—seated in a line on Sylvia and Richard’s front garden wall, Rosie and Mark finishing their ice creams in record time and me making mine last until it dripped down my arm.

“What was I like after Mum and Dad died?” I asked, my thoughts drifting back to the little boy in the case study and forward to my first social worker home visit, due to take place on Tuesday evening.

Sylvia straightened, pushing her blonde hair back from her face, leaving a smudge of dirt on her cheek. “Oh, darling, you were lost. A little lost soul. You’d be playing with Rosie one minute, all smiles, laughing about something together—you remember how you two used to get the giggles? You only had to look at each other, and you’d be off. But after your parents died, you’d suddenly go all quiet and creep up on the sofa next to me for a cuddle. You never wanted to speak about it. You just needed a cuddle. We did a lot of baking together, remember?”

“Chocolate muffins.”

“Chocolate muffins, ginger biscuits, cheese straws . . . Richard used to say he had his own private baker’s shop right in his own home.”

We shared a smile. I remembered those days, Sylvia letting me scrape out the mixing bowl. Chocolate all around my face, a measure of comfort in my heart from the deliciousness of the smells in the kitchen and the magic of having created something so wonderful from such unpromising ingredients.

“Yum!” Richard would exclaim when he came into the kitchen, making me laugh when he closed his eyes in exaggerated rapture.

“How are you doing now?” I asked Sylvia, drawing her in for a hug.

“Oh, you know, jogging along,” she said, hugging me back.

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