Page 55 of An Enchanted Moment on Ever After Street
After a couple of minutes of silence, sipping tea and dunking Hobnobs, Darcy speaks. ‘Do you know how many people I’ve sold bouquets and plants to today?’
‘How would I know something like that?’ I try to project innocence, but he saw all those eyes on him at the meeting this morning – heknowswho we were talking about.
‘Well, the funny thing is, the Ever After Street lot have pretty much given up on me lately, but today, theyalltried to make conversation. I’ve been invited to lunch, tea, private shopping evenings, been given multiple discount coupons, and Ali brought me a sample platter from 1001 Nights, even after the wine bottle incident. It suggestssomeonehas been talking about me…’
I can’t really deny it, can I? ‘Nothing but the truth. We got onto the topic of my garden and I said you’d helped me. They’ve always wanted to know you, they just didn’t think you wanted to know them.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Don’t say that. This is a little community. We support each other. You’re part of that whether you like it or not.’
‘I’m part of nothing. I can’t be part of anything, Marnie. I’m not like other people.’
‘No one is like other people.’ I can feel my frustration building. What will it take to get through to him? ‘Everyone is different. Everyone is unique. Everyone brings different strengths to Ever After Street and everyone is appreciated for who they are. Believe it or not – and I know you don’t – but the people here like you.’
‘They like some version of me that exists only inyourhead. They don’t know me. They haven’t seen me. You haven’t seen—’
‘I don’t need to see you toknowyou’re the best person who’s been in my life for many years.’ It feels like there’s an impenetrable wall between us and no matter how hard I try, I hit this wall at every turn. His wall. And he’s theonlyperson who can break it down.
Iknow that everyone on Ever After Street would accept him, no matter what, but there is nothing I can say to makehimbelieve that. I didn’t think it mattered at first, but now it’s driving me crackers. ‘Everyone admires your shop and your work at the castle. They wouldloveto know the real person behind your incredible flower displays.’
‘It can never happen. You don’t understand.’
‘So make me!’ The frustration rears its unsightly head again and I snap at him, and then sigh at myself. ‘I’m sorry, but you’re right, Idon’tunderstand and I desperately want to. Please, Darcy,letme understand.’
I sit back angrily and my shoulders hit the backrest with force and send my tea sploshing everywhere. Darcy doesn’t speak, so I eat another Hobnob, and then another with enraged bites, and eventually he sighs and sits back with a groan of pain. That subconscious noise softens my heart towards him. Those noises are something he’s never hidden from me, and I’m sure the answer to all of this lies inside them.
He dunks a biscuit and I listen to the forlorn glugging sound when he overestimates the optimal dunking time and loses half of it to the depths of the mug. I turn towards him and lean my head to the side, like it will somehow allow me to get a few millimetres closer to the edge of that metaphorical wall.
His voice is hoarse and so quiet that I don’t think I’d be able to hear it if I wasn’t sitting right next to him. ‘The last time I went out in public, I can still picture the looks on strangers’ faces. The fear. The horror. A warning for kids –that’s what you’ll end up like if you don’t do as you’re told. Someone took a photo like I was some carnival freakshow on display. I always wonder what the guy did with it. Show it round his friends and laugh? Show it to his children as part of a Halloween horror story? Look at it when things get tough and think, “Oh well, no matter how bad life is, at least I don’t look likethat”?’ His voice is shaking so much that the bench is juddering with the force of it. ‘I was desperate to be discharged from hospital and myphysical therapist said they’d never let me go without knowing I was capable of doing normal, basic things, like food shopping, so we went to the supermarket. People acted like he was a zookeeper walking a wild animal. The wide berth. The looks of pity. Confusion about how someone ends up looking like I do. Someone even said to me, “Whatisyou?”’
My heart hurts for him, and my mouth has gone dry when I go to speak. ‘I wouldn’t pay attention to someone who can’t even speak in grammatical sentences.’
He lets out a wet-sounding laugh. ‘Grammatically correct or not, it hurt more than any of the physical injuries ever had. It proved that I could never live a normal life again.’
‘Darcy…’ My protective instinct kicks in and I want to wrap him in my arms and growl at anyone who dares to come near, but he’s tense, his shoulders hunched and his body taut, and there’s no way he’d accept a hug, so I reach over and let my hand slide over his knee, squeezing it gently. ‘That’s just one person.’
‘It waseveryperson. Every single one of them looked at me like I’m a monster.’
‘No one is a monster. Well, murderers and other criminals, maybe. Are you a serial killer?’
‘Not last time I checked.’ He tries to laugh, but he sounds so vulnerable, and I realise how much this one incident has affected him. He doesn’twantto live the isolated life he leads – he pushes people away because he thinksthatis what will happen if he lets anyone in.
‘What happened to you?’ I say it quietly, absolutely terrified that this is the question that will make him jump to his feet and bolt back next door, never to speak to me again. I’ve never tried to pry before, never pushed him for answers, but it’s too important to keep dancing around like this.
‘You don’t know that anything happened to me.’ His answer is equally quiet and unforthcoming, and I have to choose whether to continue pushing or not.
I take a deep breath. ‘Yes, I do, Darcy. I know you were hurt somehow, injured in some way. Do you have any idea how many noises of pain you make? Every time you get up or sit down, it sounds like your entire body is aching. Please tell me.’
‘I can’t, Marnie.’ He stands up, clearly concealing the noise of pain this time, and the abrupt movement makes my hand drop from his knee and rattle the tray as my wrist falls against it.
One of his kneeling pads is leaning against the hedge and he throws it in front of an empty flower bed by the gate, grabs a trowel, and kneels down to start digging the new bulbs in without another word, conversation clearly closed.
I sigh and do the same. A selection of his kneeling pads have migrated over here, so I pick one up, take a handheld fork and a bag of tulip bulbs, and kneel down at one of the flower borders by the shop wall on the opposite side of the garden.
At first, I just hear the plunge of his trowel into soil and the metal against concrete clink as it hits the edges, but gradually it goes silent and all I can hear is his ragged and unsteady breathing, like I’ve forced him to think about a past he didn’t want to remember.
There’s silence for a long time, nothing but the evening chorus of birdsong and the occasional sound of a crisp leaf losing its grip on a branch and being blown to the ground in the forest. I’ve stopped digging holes for the bulbs because I’m too caught up in listening to his shuddery breaths as he tries to get his emotions back under control, and I fight with myself about whether to go over and hug him or just leave him be.
