Claire had lengths of cut string in her pocket. She took one out and held it between her teeth. Once she had the offending stems in place she took off her gardening gloves and did the tying with bare fingers.

When she came down she stood back to look at it. Such a good rose, this one,

Madame Alfred Carrière. Isn’t that a nice name? Like someone you might know.

Some of her roses, she said, were in the garden of the Empress Joséphine. She told the girl then about Joséphine’s wonderful garden. How Joséphine came from Martinique in the Caribbean, and how when Napoleon deserted her – she did not quite explain why, assuming that she had more knowledge of European history than a Japanese education would have given her, not thinking that she might know only the famous names, but not who they were or what they did – when Napoleon was gone, for whatever reason, she had her garden in France made exotic with plants from her tropical home and from all over the world. Joséphine made a life for herself, Claire said. As a woman must. She made the garden, and had plants brought to her from everywhere. Even when the French and the British were at war, ships came through carrying plants from places the British ruled, though the British Navy ruled the seas. And Claire showed her all the French roses in the garden and told her their names. Duc de Guiche, Duchesse d’Angoulême, Belle de Crécy, Comte de Chambord, Charles de Mills. She pointed out the roses gaily, as if there was a party of French courtiers all about them, some great colourful party at a château, music and fountains playing, perfumed courtiers flirting among the flowers, hiding behind the bushes she had made, shaped bushes that were the same dense dark green as the hedge. Not that all of these roses were in the garden at Malmaison, she said. Most of them had in fact been bred later, but bred in France and often from varieties that Joséphine had first brought to the country. They came to one with big deep pink petals. Zéphirine Drouhin, she said. Definitely not one of Joséphine’s. A much later hybrid. A bit vulgar for Joséphine, she tended to think.

The girl’s eyes were on her, listening, half a smile on her face. She knew she was going on rather. Her sons teased her for that, for rambling about her roses, and here she was, putting her nose to fine blooms like pink petticoats. Was that why the girl smiled? Despite herself, she was beginning to warm to this girl.

Since you’re here, perhaps you could help me carry the ladder in.