The September Garden Read Online Free PDF Page B

as if it was the same as breathing.
    Sylvie rolled into the tree house, exclaiming in surprise that she’d made it.
    Nell was surprised by the pleasant expression – she couldn’t really call it a smile, more of a glow of triumph – on her cousin’s face.
    ‘So, now we’re up here,’ said Sylvie, dabbing her glistening forehead with a lace-edged handkerchief. ‘What on God’s earth do we do?’
    ‘We could play cat’s cradle,’ Nell said, reaching for the old biscuit tin in the corner where the pitched roof touched the floor. She fished out a piece of knotted wool.
    Sylvie crowed, ‘I am not a baby. I am sixteen.’
    ‘Well, we can spy on my parents.’
    Sylvie said that that was more like it.
    The girls knelt at the squat window and peered through the canopy of leaves.
    ‘What does Uncle Marcus do all day, up there in his room?’ asked Sylvie.
    ‘He paints,’ said Nell, ‘and listens to music. He has exhibitions. He has sold his paintings. There was even one up in London. And when he’s not painting he tends the September Garden.’
    ‘The what? What do you mean?’
    ‘Shush, Mother’s coming out.’
    Mollie walked over to the herbaceous beds.
    ‘Mr Pudifoot,’ Nell heard her call, ‘Will you make a start on the ivy. It’s in a dreadful state.’
    Nell glanced up and saw her father look out of his window at the sound of her voice. He pondered over his cigarette, then turned and switched off the radio.
    ‘Your parents are strange,’ mused Sylvie, sitting up and rubbing her knees where the wooden floor had embedded marks in her flesh. ‘Whenever my parents are at home, when sometimes Papa is home early from work, they go to their room together. If I’m at home, on school holiday, or whatever, they send me out to the shops with Adele.’
    ‘My parents don’t have a room together.’
    ‘How do they make babies, then?’
    Nell shrugged, loath to admit she did not quite understand.
    ‘Do you still have to have “the little sleep”?’ she asked.
    Sylvie told her that was an idiotic question. ‘Ice-cold English,’ she muttered and glanced back out through the branches. ‘My papa says your papa is soft in the head.’
    ‘Soft? Oh no,’ said Nell, bristling in defence. ‘He is very clever. He has a condition . He is shocked .’
    ‘Shell-shocked do you mean? Don’t they say there’s going to be another war?’
    Nell felt a sudden cramp of fear. She picked at a loose piece of bark with her fingernail.
    ‘Anyway, who knows. Only those grown-ups know,’ Sylvie went on. ‘We just have to do what we’re told. Don’t you hate that? The grown-ups tell us what to do. Even when they’re stupid, they still rule everything …’
    Suddenly there was a terrific clanging sound coming from the house. Mrs Bunting was standing outside the kitchen door banging a wooden spoon on a saucepan.
    ‘ Merde ! What on earth …?’
    ‘Dinner time,’ said Nell.
    The girls ran barefoot across the lawn until Sylvie suddenly stopped and, chastising herself, sat down to put on her socks and shoes.
    Nell waited for her, wriggling her dirty toes in the grass.
    ‘I must be ladylike at all times,’ said Sylvie. ‘ Bien élevée . That’s what I must be – and so you should too.’
    Nell ignored her. She was hungry. The smell of Mrs Bunting’s dinner wafted from the dining room.
    As they walked into the room, hands washed and hair brushed, her father, already seated at the table, was saying, ‘… the belligerent madman is not giving up on Poland. Have you heard what he’s done with Danzig? He’ll want France next, you’ll see …’
    Mollie suddenly hissed, ‘Marcus! The girls!’
    Marcus Garland turned round in his chair with his particular false gaiety and cried, ‘Well, well. Ma petite nièce. Comment vas-tu? ’
    Nell broke in, ‘She’s not allowed to speak French. Auntie Beth said so.’
    ‘There’s no need to interrupt, Nell,’ said her mother, ‘while your father is