Pascal's Boys Read online

  They had poured their energies into a mutual love of plants and flowers, progressing from growing and selling plants from their garden gate to selling them on a market stall and finally realising their dream of setting up a modest garden centre.

  Tom had come to them first, a shabby, ill kept, skinny little boy of thirteen with dull skin and lacklustre green eyes. He walked into the garden centre in response to a notice on the door asking for a keen Saturday boy or girl to keep the place tidy and help customers take their purchases to their cars. He had no experience, but there was something about him that made Pascal give him the job there and then. It proved a wise decision. He was a willing worker.

  Pascal and Eleanor would arrive every Saturday to open up and Tom would be waiting, sitting patiently outside the door, his knees drawn up under his chin with his arms wrapped around them. He’d stay as long as he could after closing time, helping clear up and tend the plants, carefully learning their names and needs.

  At first he spoke little and smiled less. It upset both him and Eleanor that a child should have such a deficit of joy about him. Tom’s smile when it did appear was like a sunray, something beautiful to be savoured.

  He never spoke about his home life, though it was clear it was less than happy. Just how bad it was became horribly apparent when Tom was fourteen, almost fifteen. It was the year they took him into their home.

  Two years later Adam came into their lives. Eleanor saw his picture in a newspaper campaign appealing for long-term foster parents for children who for one reason or another had been overlooked by prospective adopters. She couldn’t get the child’s face out of her mind. He was like Tom, she said. She could see the loneliness in him.

  Adam’s story was strange and tragic. He’d been found abandoned in a rust eaten caravan on a tinker’s roadside campsite. He’d been left there to die, like the rotting dog whose side he was huddled against. Workmen clearing the tip site in preparation to widen the road found him there, close to death. He was about eighteen months, perhaps two years old. No one knew his age for certain. There was nothing to identify him. No one ever came forward to lay claim or give name to the filthy emaciated little boy. He was named after the workman who plucked up a pile of papers and rags and discovered a child.

  Despite intensive investigations among the travelling communities no concrete information was ever garnered about why a child was discarded like a piece of rubbish. There was a whisper about the child’s mother having somehow disgraced her kin. When she died no one wanted to care for her child. The story was never corroborated.

  It was left to the authorities to care for Adam, until Pascal and Eleanor responded to the newspaper appeal four years later. Withdrawn and suspicious Adam had needed lots of patient attention and lots of love. He got it. He flourished just as a plant flourishes when it gets the right kind of care.

  Pascal spoke softly to his wife. “I’ll see you soon, mijn beste één. I’ll tell you all about our boys, our beautiful boys. You’ll be so proud.” He tenderly kissed her face and set the photo back in place.

  Chapter Four

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Tom poured boiling water onto the leaves in the teapot. Popping on the lid he left it to brew. Pascal liked his tea to have body. He slipped two slices of bread into the toaster and then opened the kitchen door. Leaning against the frame he viewed the long back garden with pleasure, inhaling the mixed scent of lemon thyme, cologne mint and lavender coming from the herb border closest to the kitchen. The perfume returned memories of Eleanor.

  He used to help her pick the herbs. She would dry and package them to sell as potpourri in the garden centre. She had taught him their names and the properties associated with them, such as how rosemary was a symbol of love for those who had passed on. It represented a promise not to forget the impact they’d had on your life and the memories shared with them.

  He had known next to nothing about nature before going to work for Pascal and Eleanor. He had lived in a run down tenement block. It was a place of discouraging concrete with urine soaked corners. The only colour came from graffiti sprayed on the walls. To escape he went for long solitary walks, wandering far and wide into more attractive areas. It was how he discovered the garden centre. He had applied for the Saturday job on impulse, not believing for a second that the tall, keen eyed man with a shock of blond hair would take him on, but he did.

  The garden centre became his refuge. It was a place of calm sanctuary he couldn’t wait to get to each week. His own home was hell on earth. His parents were locked in a downward spiral of drug and alcohol dependency, which left little room for anything else, including him. His paternal grandmother had cared for him more than his parents, but she died when Tom was five. From then on he had dragged himself up, often resorting to scavenging in neighbours’ bins when his parents failed to remember to feed him.

  A few weeks short of his fifteenth birthday he had returned home from school to find that his father, who was already drunk, had finally gotten wind of the little job he’d been keeping secret. He had ransacked his bedroom in search of money or things to sell to buy heroin. He didn’t find money, but he did find a cache of sketches. Tom had drawn them as a means of exploring a growing awareness of his sexuality.

  The man who drank away the family income and who bought drugs instead of food and clothes for his only child suddenly discovered a sense of morality. It was outraged by his son’s homosexuality.

  Tom had regained consciousness to find he was lying on a pyre of sour bedding and torn paper with his father dousing him in lighter fuel. Somehow, he had no real recollection of the logistics involved, he had managed to get out of the room and out of the filthy flat before he was burned alive.

  He headed for the only place of safety he knew, the garden centre. It was late. Pascal was closing up. Tom collapsed into his arms. His life changed from that moment on.

  Pascal and Eleanor took him into their home. They gave him a room, food, clothes and something he had rarely known, love and care. His sexuality was no issue. Eleanor’s cousin Marcus was gay. He and his partner Ian were close friends with both Eleanor and Pascal.

  Tom folded his arms tight across his chest. He’d found the deaths of Eleanor and Marcus difficult to deal with, particularly Eleanor’s. She had been like a mother to him, a warm, kind and deeply intuitive woman.

  When Tom was sixteen he went through a phase of imagining he was in love with Pascal. His feelings frightened and confused him. They felt wrong on so many levels. He withdrew into himself, hiding away in his room to avoid contact. Eleanor somehow knew. She had gently broached the subject with him. He had broken down into tears as he tried to explain his feelings, apologizing for them.

  She had soothed him, saying they were natural in the circumstances and nothing to fret over or feel guilty about. Pascal had been the first man to show Tom kindness and affection. She said Tom was at an age when emotions were hard to distinguish one from another. The feelings he had for Pascal were a mix of gratitude and the kind of love a son felt for a father.

  Afterwards Pascal had come to Tom’s room. Sitting beside him he had slipped an arm around his shoulders, saying kindly, ‘talk to me, my boy, you’ve been all too quiet of late. Papa doesn’t like it when you’re quiet and sad. He misses your smiles.’

  The words had further clarified Tom’s feelings for Pascal and put their relationship into context. He had turned into his arms and sobbed. Pascal had stroked his hair and comforted him, as a father comforts his child. In the years that followed whenever Pascal knew Tom was upset or struggling with life he would hold out his arms and say: ‘come to me, come to your papa. Tell me your troubles, mijn jongen.’

  The summer garden was suddenly submerged in water, wavering out of focus. Tom utilised a shirtsleeve once again. Eleanor was gone and soon Pascal would join her. He really believed he would be reunited with his wife after his death. He had an extraordinary faith in God and yet he had not set foot in a church for decades. Sitting on a woo
den pew every Sunday might make a man religious, he said, but it didn’t necessarily make him good or just.

  In Pascal’s view, religion and God were totally different things. God was to be found in open places and open minds, not in closed buildings and the pages of a printed book. Not even Eleanor’s death had dented his faith. Bad things happened to good people. It was the nature of life. It served no purpose to try and name God as villain.

  The toast popped from the toaster bringing Tom’s thoughts back to present considerations. Closing the kitchen door he went to pour the tea.

  Chapter Five

  “Thank you. It was pleasant.” Pascal set the Delft teacup down on the lap tray, and then leaned back, exhausted by the effort.

  Tom took the tray downstairs and then returned to the bedroom, picking up the daily newspaper from the doormat en route. He handed it to Pascal, who shook his head. “I’m not in the mood for reading about the world’s misery, not today.”

  “I could help you do the crossword.”

  “Later perhaps. Sit down, Tom.” Pascal held out a hand. “Keep me company a while. I like to look at you.”

  Tom took hold of the thin hand and tenderly kissed it before sitting down on the bed.

  “How are things between you and Adam?”

  “Fine.” Tom gave a slight smile. “He’s enjoying life. I think he’s flirting with someone.”

  “Eleanor always suspected,” Pascal glanced towards her photo, “that Adam was gay. She said it right from the start. He’s special, like Marcus and Tom. She was so sure of it. She believed God denied us babies of our own for a reason, so we’d be ready to open our arms to children who needed not only love, but acceptance and understanding.”

  He turned his gaze back to Tom’s face. “She would have seen the relationship between you and Adam as a part of God’s plan, as I do, though I won’t deny I was worried at first. I didn’t want either one of you getting hurt if things went wrong, but then I saw how natural you are together. You know you have my blessing, Tom.”

  “I know, and I’m grateful for it.”

  “Look after him when I’m gone. He needs more than a pretty little lover to flirt with. He needs someone to care not just about him, but also for him. Someone to be strong when he can’t be strong for himself, someone to guide him.”

  “I’ll always be here for him, Pascal, in whatever way he needs me, as a friend, mentor or partner. Whatever he chooses.”

  “He loves you, believe it. He’s been in love with you since he was sixteen years old and you came back from your travels smelling of foreign adventures.”

  “Those days seem a long way off.”

  “Do you regret coming home, Tom?”

  “Not for a moment. This is where I belong. It took going away to make me realise it.”

  “What about Art School? I sometimes feel guilty about that.”

  “There’s no need, Pascal. My heart never really yearned in that direction. I stayed because I wanted to, not because I felt I had to. There’s art enough in what I do now. I love it.”

  “I’m glad, Tom, so glad. Now, enough with chatter.” Pascal smiled and made an effort to sit up straighter. “I have a yen for fresh air. Help this old man dress. I’d like to sit in the garden for a while today. I want to visit my Eleanor.”

  Chapter Six

  “I’ve never seen them look more beautiful, especially Eleanor. The scent,” Pascal closed his eyes, inhaling deeply, “is sheer heaven.” He opened his eyes and smiled. ”You’ve tended them well, Tom. Thank you. The Eleanor is particularly abundant this year. You seem to have an affinity with roses.”

  “I had a good teacher who showed me how to care for them properly. The poulberin,” Tom gave the varietal name to the pink floribunda rose known commercially as Eleanor, “is an easy variety to work with.”

  “I want my ashes scattered here in the rose garden, to mingle with my Eleanor’s. You’ll do that for me, Tom?”

  “Of course I will.” Tom squeezed the words past the lump in his throat.

  They stood in companionable silence for a few moments enjoying the sights, sounds and scents of the rose garden. It had been created in Eleanor’s memory and was where her ashes were scattered. Lavender and sweet rosemary had been planted between the bushes. It was a haven for bees and butterflies, a place of serenity where Pascal felt close to his wife.

  He broke the silence. “My dust will rest easy here. The roses will absorb it. I’ll become one with nature.” He touched a solemn hand to Tom’s face. “When you’re sad or troubled, you come here, to papa, and find comfort, yes?”

  Tom couldn’t speak. By way of reply he laid a hand on top of the hand caressing his face.

  After settling Pascal on a comfortable lounger beneath a shady parasol, Tom pottered around doing some of the little tasks Pascal had pointed out as they’d made a slow, laboured circuit of the gardens to the front, back and side of the house. He could sense Pascal watching him and turned every now and again to smile and exchange a word or two.

  As he worked at weeding and tidying the borders he thought over the conversation they’d had in the bedroom. He had told the truth when he said he had no regrets.

  Before the deaths of Eleanor and Marcus he had been on the brink of going to Art School in London. After the accident he gave up his place and stayed home, because Pascal and Adam needed him, and he needed them.

  A mild depression overcame him when he was twenty-one, manifesting as wanderlust. He set out to ‘find himself’ heading for the vineyards of France to work for a season. Summer turned to autumn. He travelled to Belgium and from there to Spain to work in bars with a boyfriend. Their relationship was built on sex and soon perished.

  From Spain he had ventured to Greece where he worked in a taverna for a sour-faced man and his sharp-tongued wife. They had a handsome son who put on a straight face by day. Furtive sex and otherwise being ignored did not suit Tom and he set off on his travels again.

  He visited Egypt, Chile and Mexico, had a brief stay and a sweet love affair in Morocco and then returned to Europe, to Italy, eventually settling in Stresa on the shores of beautiful Lake Maggiore. He found work in a garden centre and spent his days tending plants under the Mediterranean sun.

  One day while walking in the hills above the town a storm had blown in from nowhere, as it often did on the continent. He took shelter beneath a blood orange tree and watched the storm break over the lake. It was spectacular nature in all its raw majesty.

  All at once a longing for home every bit as powerful as the storm he was witnessing swept over him. He wanted the sun, rain and wind of his own land. He wanted Pascal and Adam. Letters, postcards, phone calls and the odd Christmas visit home were no longer enough.

  He suddenly realised it was the lonely young boy within him who had gone a wandering and the self he’d been trying to find was located back in England, waiting in a place of safety. His time in the wild was over. He returned home and moved into a place of his own. He resumed working with Pascal at the garden centre and was content.

  In the years he’d been away Adam had grown from a child to a young man. The years of separation brought about a subtle change in their relationship. It was no longer one of big brother to little brother, and never would be again.

  From the bond of caring friendship grew a more consummate and passionate love. It grew slowly over a period of time, blossoming when Adam was nineteen and struggling with life away from home. A bright boy, he had earned a place at Oxford University. He went off to study literature and poetry amongst the dreaming spires, and hated it. He couldn’t connect with the people around him and felt he didn’t fit in. The truth was he didn’t want to fit in. He missed the tight knit security of home, missed his papa. The competitive academic world did not suit his personality. Tom and Pascal made frequent trips to Oxford to lend support, but even so Adam’s unhappiness deepened.

  Tom took charge one rainy evening after a phone call from Adam in which he’d sobbed he co
uldn’t bear life at Oxford for another second. He’d made the mistake of confiding his origins and his sexuality to a boy he thought might be a friend. The ‘friend’ had made it common knowledge amongst the other students Adam shared halls with. For some reason they deemed it amusing and dubbed him the tinker’s trash, cruelly taunting that perhaps he’d been left out to rot because he was queer.

  Tom told him to pack up his things and drove down to Oxford that same night after telling Pascal what had happened. He agreed it was best if Adam came home. His personal happiness far outweighed academic achievement.

  A hug of comfort in Adam’s room had led to a passionate kiss and then a shared bed. When they drove away from the hallowed, but despised university in the early hours of the morning they did so as lovers.

  Tom’s stomach interrupted his thoughts of past times, growling a command to be fed. It was well past noon and he had breakfasted early. He headed indoors to wash his hands and make a start on lunch.

  Chapter Seven

  Pascal was fond of apples, having a particular penchant for sweet yellow Golden Delicious. Tom peeled and thinly sliced one to add to the plate of dainty ham sandwiches he had prepared for him. Pascal’s once robust appetite had dwindled almost to nothing. The cancer had all but destroyed his stomach making the consumption of food almost a torment. It had to be cut into small morsels so he could manage it. He put the sandwiches on a tray along with one of the supplementary drinks designed to compensate for real nourishment and took it out into the garden.

  Pascal tackled his meagre lunch with more enthusiasm and enjoyment than he’d shown in weeks. They talked as they ate, about the layout of the new garden centre and the plants to be stocked. Pascal advised on planting and potting schedules and then they discussed what jobs needed to be done around the house and gardens over the coming months. Tom made a deliberate effort to take pleasure in the conversation, firmly pushing the knowledge he would be doing the jobs alone to the back of his mind.