The China Garden
Liz Berry
The Legend of Demeter and Persephone
Demeter, Goddess of Grain and Fertility, the Great Earth Mother, searched for nine days for her lost daughter Persephone, who had been carried off by Hades, God of the Underworld. Demeter, full of grief, wandered the Earth, pretending to be an old woman. When she came to Eleusis she cared for Demophoon, the infant son of the king. She was seen placing him in the sacred fire to make him immortal. She was recognized and a famous temple was erected to her at Eleusis.
Demeter, grieving for Persephone, made all the vegetation die----trees, plants, corn, rice, vegetables, everything died, and the earth lay desolate and barren. At last Hades promised Persephone that she could spend two-thirds of each year on Earth, and every year Persephone, Goddess of Spring and Rebirth, comes home to the light of the sun, the wind and the rain, and her mother bestows abundant food upon the Earth.
The legend symbolizes the cycle of human life----rebirth in Man as in nature. Human life is like corn: it grows with the season, ages, dies----and is reborn.
*** Chapter I
Dark of the moon. Near dawn. Starlight shimmered along the dragon walls. Nothing stirred in the China Garden. No breeze. No night sound. The only waking creature was a tortoiseshell cat sitting on the step of the First Moon Gate like a creature from a pharaoh's tomb, watching and waiting.
It was many years since anyone had walked here, but now the grass was bending in the still air. Invisible feet were passing to and fro, leaving a winding track.
There was a drift of sound, ancient pipe music, then a strange shifting, something coming alive, and a whisper, like a breath, moving through the shadows, "She's coming ... She's coming ..."
On the great hill that rose above the Garden, a tall figure detached itself from the darkness of the ancient standing stone. The starlight gleamed on the wide shoulders of his leather jacket, as he stretched, stiff from his long wait. Sometimes it seemed he had been waiting for her for ever, but now at last he knew she was coming. He stared down at the darkened house. There was a light burning in a big window overlooking the terrace. Was the old man waiting too?
The clock clicked onto the hour loudly.
"Stop. Put down your pens now ."
There was a muffled groan from the students.
Clare Meredith leaned back, added a final comma to the
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sheets she had been reading, checked her name and clipped them together. Finished. Her last A-level paper. All over at last.
She could hear Sara behind her, muttering to herself and dropping her papers on the floor.
No more worry, panic and effort. So why was this ball of anxiety and tension in her chest getting bigger all the time, as though something unpleasant was about to happen?
"You all right, Clare? You look a bit odd." Sara tucked her arm through Clare's as they left the room.
"I'm fine." Impossible to explain this eerie feeling even to Sara.
"Listen----I've got plans for us this summer! Come on, I'll stand you a coffee and a burger. Let's live it up!"
"You're late, Clare. Where on earth have you been?"
Clare's fingers tightened on her house key. She glanced at the hall clock. "It's not half-five yet!"
"I've been waiting for you to get home. I've got to talk to you."
"We all went to McDonald's."
"With dear Adrian, I suppose."
"With Sara , actually."
Her mother's taut shoulders relaxed.
"Oh, Clare, I'm sorry. I forgot you had another exam today."
"The last one. We were celebrating. "''''
"How did it go?"
"Okay," Clare said, shortly. "All topics I'd revised." She threw her book bag, strangely light now, into its usual corner by the front door, for the last time. She felt flattened, still hardly able to take it in.
"I can't believe it's finished."
"When will you get the results?"
"August sometime." Not quite out of the woods yet, she
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reminded herself. Not enough to pass . She needed three good grades for university.
She watched her mother in the hall mirror. Frances was getting ready for work, stabbing pins nervously into her dark gold french pleat to go under her Ward Sister's cap.
"Well, it's done now, thank goodness," Frances said. "It's been a strain on both of us. You've been hard to live with, Clare."
"I know. I'm sorry." But it came out too stiffly. They both knew that the tension of the exams was only part of the trouble between them. There was her choice of career. And there was Adrian.
Until she had started to date Adrian they had always got on well together----joking, sharing, talking things over. They went shopping, poking about for bargains in the street markets, having a Chinese meal, wandering around the London museums on Sunday afternoons. They hadn't done that for a long time, Clare thought, with a sense of loss.
And it wasn't all on her side. Lately her mother had been unreasonably irritable and tense.
She said, embarrassed, "I ... er ... wanted to say thanks for everything. Letting me stay on into sixth-form college. Giving me a chance at university. I really do appreciate all you're doing for me. I wish you didn't have to work all the extra hours."
Frances looked at her in the mirror. "I haven't got anybody else, Clare. And, besides, you're worth it. You haven't wasted your chances, or taken them for granted. You've worked really hard."
Her mother was a good-looking woman, Clare thought. No, be honest. She was beautiful. High cheek bones, pale translucent skin. But there was something strange about her face that sometimes had people turning round in the street to take a second look.
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They stood shoulder to shoulder staring into the mirror, feeling closer than they had for weeks. Clare was the same height as her mother, but she favoured her father's family. She had a mass of wiry black hair which she tamed by plaiting it back tightly from the crown of her head.
This afternoon, though, as they stood in a shaft of sunlight from the small window next to the front door, Clare was suddenly struck by their likeness. It's our eyes, she thought. Wide and silvery, tilting slightly upwards.
Her mother laughed aloud. "We're alike, Clare. Something weird about us. Look at those strange witchy eyes! You know they'd have burned both of us five hundred years ago."
Clare was not surprised Frances had picked up her own thought. Telepathy. It happened so frequently it wasn't worth mentioning.
Frances had stopped laughing and was staring into her own eyes in the mirror. The closed, shuttered look came over her face, her heavy eyelids drooped. "Perhaps they would have been right."
Clare felt a cold shiver run down her back. What was she seeing? Her mother's strange psychic ability disturbed and worried her. Although Frances rarely spoke of it, it was always there , ever present, a dimension of her mother's personality that Clare preferred not to think about.
She tried to draw away, but Frances' arm lay heavily on her shoulders. "I've got something to tell you, Clare. It's not the best time really, but I mustn't put it off any longer. I'm going ... Well, I've got another job."
"You're leaving St Joseph's?" Clare was shocked. Her mother had worked at the hospital as far back as she could remember, even before her father died.
"It's a private nursing job. Looking after one elderly man. The salary is very good."
"B-but..." Her mother had often expressed her views on people who did private nursing in order to get a higher
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salary. "You said you might be in line for a Sister Tutor's job. I thought you liked it there."
"This job is residential, down in the West Country..."
"You mean we're moving!
"Stoke Raven in Somerset."
"You mean we're leaving London? Leaving all our friends? Selling our house?"
"No-o. Not selling the house. Too difficult just now. But I've been incredibly lucky. I've been able to let it furnished to a bone specialist and his wife who are on exchange from the States for a year. It's just as if it was meant to be. They want to move in in two weeks."
Two weeks! Had her mother gone off her head? Clare said, dazed, "We're actually leaving , going to Somerset? Suppose I don't want to go? What about me? I was born here!"
"You're leaving home anyway. You'll be going to university in a few months. Until then I thought you'd want to stay in London. I've spoken to Sara's mother and she says she'll put you up in her spare room."
The significance of what Frances was saying hit Clare hard. She suddenly felt like a chick that had just been pushed out of its nest, cold and lonely and too frightened to fly yet. She wanted her freedom and independence, of course she did. She had looked forward to going to university. But this was too strange, too sudden. She wasn't prepared.
"I don't want to stay in London on my own."
"Hardly on your own. What about Sara and Adrian and ..."
"I'd rather come with you," Clare said in a small voice. "Isn't there any room for me?"
"Well, there is, of course." Frances sounded reluctant and doubtful. "I'll have my own place. But I'm sure you wouldn't like it. There's nothing there, Clare. Just the big house, Ravensmere, and the village, Stoke Raven. It wouldn't suit you at all. I mean, there's no public library or swimming pool,
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or anything ... There are no young people ... And I'll be working all the time ..."
"You don't want me," Clare said, blankly.
She couldn't believe that her mother was simply turning her out and going off to a new life in the country without her.
"Don't you have to give notice?"
"I already have."
"I don't understand what's gone wrong with us," Clare said desperately. "We always used to decide everything together, ever since Dad died. But you let our house without saying anything. You could have told me."
"I could----if I'd wanted endless rows and arguments. And upsetting you in the middle of the exams."
Her mother looked at her steadily, her eyes brilliant. "I've got to go back, Clare. I should have gone before. But you've been in the middle of all your exams the past few years, so I waited."
" Back ? You mean you've been there before?"
"I lived there once. I went back for your grandfather's funeral three years ago."
"I don't remember that."
"You were in France."
The school holiday paid for by putting money weekly in the china cat on the kitchen shelf.
"I thought you'd always lived in London."
Clare was upset. She had thought they were so close that she knew everything about her mother. But a big part of her life had been missing. Not just missing----deliberately concealed. "What about relatives? My grandmother----is she still alive?"
"Of course not. I told you, my mother died when I was a child."
"But my grandfather was alive until three years ago, and you never said. Never let me see him." Clare's disappointment
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and sense of loss was so acute it was an actual pain in her chest. "You know I always wished we had some family and now it's too late. I'll never see him."
"He didn't want to know us, Clare. He wouldn't see me. He told me never to come back. It's no good digging up the past."
And yet she had cared enough to go back for his funeral, Clare thought.
The closed look was back on her mother's face, and Clare was convinced that there was a lot left out of what she was saying. Lying by omission they called it. She realized now just how little her mother had said about her early life.
"Look, we'll talk about it sometime. But I've got to go now. I'll be late." Frances avoided Clare's eyes. "You'd better start sorting out your things." She buttoned her navy cape, and started towards the door.
"So why go back now ?"
The question sank into Frances' back like a knife and stopped her dead. There was a long silence. At last she said, "I haven't taken the decision lightly. I have to go back, Clare. I have no choice. I owe."
Clare's eyes widened. " Money? " Wild ideas of gambling and blackmail chased around her head.
Frances shook her head. "Big debts you can't repay with money."
Clare could hear the tiredness and strain in her voice, and knew suddenly that her mother was desperately worried, frightened even.
"There's something wrong, isn't there? You're not telling me the truth."
"I don't want to get you involved. You've got your own life ahead of you."
Clare stared at her, and suddenly heard her own voice sounding high and clear, echoing in her head, "I'm coming to Ravensmere with you."
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Frances spun round. "Look, honestly, it's not a good idea, Clare. Oh, of course I want you with me! You're my daughter. I'm going to miss you dreadfully. We've gone through a lot together, but no ..." Her hands were shaking. She said abruptly, hoarsely, "I can't protect you there."
"What absolute garbage! Protect me from what? I'm nearly eighteen. I can look after myself, thank you very much." Clare was furious. She said bitterly, "You're just trying to get rid of me. Making excuses. But don't worry, I won't stay. It's only for a few weeks and then I'll be gone. Permanently .''"
"I didn't mean it like that," said her mother helplessly. "It's just... Oh God, I can't explain now. I'm so late. We'll have to talk about it later. You'll change your mind when you think it over."
But Clare did not change her mind. Perversely, the more her mother tried to dissuade her, the more she knew that she would have to go.
She couldn't explain, even to herself, why the determination to go to Ravensmere with her mother had ceased to be a choice and become a compulsion. There was no logical reason.
She tried to tell herself that it was because her mother needed her support, but even that was not the reason. She only knew that deep down there was a driving urgency, a sort of timing that required her to go to Ravensmere----and be there as soon as possible. She felt it so strongly, there was no way she could think of opposing it. Curiosity, she thought uncomfortably. Just curiosity. But it was more than that. A lot more.
At last, after days of argument, when the books and packing cases were stacked around them on the dining room floor, Frances gave way, no match for Clare's steely determination.
"Oh very well, come if you must. But it's your own choice. Remember I tried to stop you. Don't blame me. Remember, I tried to warn you." Her eyes were wild, almost distraught.
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Clare felt cold. She knew it was a serious warning. But why then had her mother somehow never managed to find the time to explain everything properly?
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*** Chapter 2
"Why are we going this roundabout route?" asked Clare, impatiently. She had the road map book open on her lap. "We could have been in Somerset now, if we'd kept on the motorway."
They had started early, but it was already uncomfortably hot as they crawled around the M25 and out through the interminable western suburbs of London. They had been snapping at each other all the way like bad-tempered Yorkies, Clare thought, ashamed, but somehow unable to stop. Frances was edgy and strained, and Clare was hugging her resentment and anger to her like a baby blanket.
"There's no mad rush. I don't start until Monday."
"Anyone would think you didn't want to get there at all."
Frances rubbed the back of her neck and tried to relax her shoulders. "I thought you'd like to see something of the countryside. We've not been out of London much. Money too tight."
Clare shrugged, sliding down in her seat morosely. With every mile she felt more and more out of place. What on earth was she doing here?
The June countryside, laced with trees and flowering hedges, was like a single great green parkland beaded with ancient towns and villages. Every inch looked as though someone or other had tended it lovingly for hundreds of years, ploughing and plastering, trimming and painting, and training up the clematis.
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Picture postcard England, Clare thought disparagingly, feeling like a foreigner. It was all true----the pictures on the biscuit tins and the birthday cards, and none of it felt real.
It was a long way from gritty old London, with its rushing, shouting people, and broken houses, its grand buildings, and bags of spilling rubbish, the new offices glittering with glass and fax machines buzzing out information and news from every part of the world. The centre of everything, she had thought.
But all the while this other England had been going on without her knowing. The thatched cottages and timbered houses sat in their gardens, serene, uncaring about all the exciting, important things happening in London. A forgotten, permanent world, hardly changing, in a different time warp.
Adrian would hate it.
She wondered how his first day had gone. He'd be running the bank for them if they gave him half a chance.
"What are you grinning at?"
"Adrian started a job in the City today."
"On his way to his first million, no doubt," Frances said acidly.
Clare closed her mouth and looked out at the high open country of the Marlborough Downs, wishing she did not feel so miserable and flat. Exam reaction, maybe. Think of it as an adventure. Something new. If only her mother didn't dislike Adrian so much.
The first time Clare had taken him home he had got into an argument with Frances about some common land nearby where they wanted to build a six-lane motorway extension. Adrian had said you couldn't take the badgers and foxes into account when it was a question of economic profit. Frances was organizing the Save-the-Wildlife protest group.
"Patronizing fool!" said her mother, when he'd gone. "A greedy, conceited, male chauvinist. He's glib and specious,
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as smooth and hard as marble. I don't know what you see in him."
That was easy, Clare thought. He was the best-
looking boy in the college, clever, a high--flier----and he was the only boy who had ever asked her out. Clare had been flattered and grateful. She knew she wasn't popular with boys. Too serious. A 'brain' who worked too hard. She was relieved to know she could find a boyfriend after all, like her friends who had all been dating for years.
Clare had been unsure about her choice of career. She was a good all--rounder, interested in all sorts of things, and in crisis about the subject she should read at university. She was glad to talk it over with Adrian.
You had to have money, Adrian believed. That was the first and most important thing. You had to have a career that would allow you to make big money and give lots of perks, like cars, mortgages and health and pension schemes.
Adrian had thought it pointless to read Social Sciences, Medicine or even History (Clare's vague long--term choices) because who in their right minds would want to be a social worker, a doctor or, worst of all, a teacher? You couldn't be a bleeding heart worrying about all the failures like the unemployed and sick. Why didn't Clare try for a business degree, he suggested, then she could go into a range of City jobs and get really good money.
As the time ran out, Clare, confused and finally desperate, had put in her application to read Economics and Computer Science at Sussex, and had been accepted, subject to her A--level results.
Her mother had been more angry than Clare had ever seen her.
"It's wrong for you, Clare. Economics is your weakest subject. Here you are, mad about History, brilliant at the Sciences, if Mr Syms is to be believed, yet you're forcing yourself into a business career. There's loads of things you
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could do that would give you a good career and where you could help people too."
"You're such a bleeding heart," Clare said angrily. "Always wanting to help everybody. I want to be well paid."
"Who doesn't? But I don't want you messing up your life just grabbing for money."
"There's nothing wrong with money."
"There is if it takes over, alters how you think about life. You've changed, Clare, since you've been with Adrian. All you think about is number one and getting on."
"But it's like that now. You have to be competitive if you want to get a job. Not like in your day."
"That's right. I'm the sixties' generation. I've got different values. I think the community matters too."
The disappointment and weariness in her voice stung Clare. "Other parents are pleased when their children have got ambition and sensible ideas that lead to a proper career."
"I'd love to see you make good and have an easier life than I've had. You know how much I want you to go to university. We planned it together. But there's more to life than money, Clare."
"Such as," said Clare, sceptically.
"Doing something you're interested in. Satisfaction. Self--fulfillment. Education isn't for getting a job. It's about developing yourself as a human being."
"Are you going to tell me that you can have a good life on family benefit? Adrian says ..."
"I don't want to hear it. I've been hearing it for months. You're like a ventriloquist's dummy. Why don't you start thinking for yourself?"
And they had said hurtful, bitter things to each other--the worst quarrel they had ever had. The stiffness was still there between them.
...
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