‘How could it ever have been just you?’
‘But, in the field, you ran—’
‘—I was afraid.’
‘And now?’
‘I’ve tried to keep away, I transferred you to Wyatt, the last few weeks, I’ve thrown myself into work, I haven’t come back to the cottage. I’ve told myself it is unforgivable, wrong, I might have convinced myself if I’d gone away, if you had. But being here with you, seeing you—’ He looks at me then, he takes all of me in, my face, my breasts under my long-sleeved T-shirt, the hike of my shorts, my bare legs, and then I realise the hundreds of times he’s looked at me are shadows of this look, only this is real because being looked at like this changes my entire body, every inch of me is searching for him, straining towards him. ‘—I think I was deluded. Because I can’t stop myself.’
I close my eyes briefly. ‘Then don’t.’
‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘Not all of it. But I know some things.’
‘Like what?’
My throat is tight, I think I might cry. ‘I know there is something between us. I knew it the first time we met. It’s always been there, in the museum, on that beach in Devon, in your house,the thyme.’ Behind me, butterfly wings brush against the mesh. ‘I don’t know what it is. Does everyone have it? Maybe it’s like this with other people—’
‘—No,’ he says softly. ‘It isn’t like this with other people. Only with you.’
There is a burst of joy in me, something I didn’t believe was there.
He takes my wrist, forms a circle round it with his thumb and forefinger. He draws the circle up, pushing back the cotton of my sleeve. At my elbow, he stops, slips his hand under my arm. He seems to examine it for a second, the smoothness of my skin, the eddy of my veins. ‘Rare. Astonishing.’ He bends his head and kisses it.
35
Apothecary
Now
Back at the hotel, I get to work. My mind is a happy hum as I pull on my gloves and empty out my haul. I feel like I am in my greenhouse again, Millie safe with Kit in The Wedge or at nursery. I sort through what I’ve collected into flowers, leaves and seeds, then, I boil a kettle of water to sterilise the jam jars, I want things to be perfect. I pour in scalding water. Mist rises. Condensation runs down the outside.
I start with the baby’s breath, cutting the sprays of tiny white flowers to the same length, dividing them into bunches. The wardrobe is the best place to dry them, it’s dark inside, away from the humidity of the bathroom or the windows. I string them up from the hangers. Pretty. Kit and I went to a wedding four years ago where the bride walked down the aisle with an entire bouquet of baby’s breath, bound together with a silk bow. Kit looked at me, he was thinking about our wedding day, and I squeezed his hand as if I was too, but I wasn’t. I was thinking how that bouquet was a skin irritant, that it can cause gastronomic and respiratoryissues. Which was fine for her. No one was rubbing it into her skin. No one was making her eat it.
Botany was always women’s work. Daniel might have started my botanical educational but I finished it. In the libraries at Wyatt, at Oxford, I discovered that way before those wealthy Natural History Museum collectors sailed to their West Indies plantations for specimens, the first botanists were women. They were called other names then – herbalists, healers, hedge witches – they bartered their services for eggs and honey, they distilled, purified and poured to make poultices for aching muscles or salves for wounds, to bud an empty womb or to stop it. What choice did they have but to use what grew in plain sight?
The cycad seeds I soak in a basin of water. I wait until their orange flesh softens before pulling them off. Underneath are smooth, toffee-coloured seeds, the shape of large acorns. I pass one from one palm to the other, trying to feel the electricity of their toxins – abdominal pain, muscle weakness, dementia.You wanted me, Daniel, all of me. This is me. Poisoning you.
I make myself a hot water bottle. Pressing the warmth against my stomach, I survey the beginnings of my own apothecary: the bunches of baby’s breath, the neat row of jam jars; cycad seeds set out to dry, and beside them, on the desk, my angel’s trumpets, the flowers sealed shut like silenced mouths. I feel very strong, very powerful, part of a long line of powerless women finding power. Hate us, fuck us, burn us, we can bring healing, give life or the opposite. We can main and harm and kill.
From: Kit McDermott
14:25
I thought I’d cracked it when I had the idea of checking our joint account, I thought, I’m going to see you booking yourself into a hotel, buying a salad, I promised myself that if I found you, I’d be calm, I wouldn’t scare you, wouldn’t show up. I’d call you at the hotel, just ask, politely, if I could come and see you.
But there were no transactions, not since you left on Friday, and my heart plunged, I thought I was never going to find you.
Then, I saw it. A £200 cash withdrawal this month. I’ve looked back as far as the bank lets me – it’s always the same, £200 goes out every month. I’ve ransacked our whole house but I can’t find that money. I’ve never seen you with that much cash.
I thought you’d left us because of the baby. But this is something completely different, isn’t it? Before Faye, before Millie, perhaps even before me. You’ve been planning this.
36
Botany
Then