Ivy Lane: Spring: (8 page)

As soon as my work at the allotment was done I’d dashed off to the train station.

I had a lovely time in Harrogate with Mum; we weren’t close like Gemma and her parents but that didn’t mean we didn’t enjoy each other’s company once in a while. We browsed for hours in the shops on Montpellier Hill (she bought lacy knickers, which I chose not to question, and I bought a scarf from Oxfam), had an indulgent afternoon tea in Betty’s Tea Rooms and spent the evening in companionable comfort snuggled up in front of the TV with the
Downton Abbey
boxset and a slab of milk chocolate.

Over the course of the weekend I filled her in on my new life in Kingsfield: funny stories about the children in my class, tales of triumph at the allotment and I even embellished my role as minute-taker at the committee meetings to reinforce just how well I was integrating back into society. It all sounded very positive, even to my ears. It did the job, too: Mum only mentioned the lovely young single man from the local history association twice and thankfully kept her comments about the telephone calls she had had from James’s parents to a minimum. I missed them both dearly, but I wasn’t ready to get in touch – not quite yet.

She waved me off on the Sunday-afternoon train with a promise that as soon as I had a bed for the spare room, she would come and visit. She might love her only daughter but clearly wasn’t prepared to compromise on comfort.

No sooner had the train pulled out of the station than my ears started to burn, my head began to throb and by the time I was back in Kingsfield I was running a fever.

I woke on Monday morning bathed in sweat and could barely speak to phone in to school to report my absence. Three whole days passed in a fog of sleep, pain and paracetamol but by Wednesday the worst was over and I made it back into school for the end of term, much to the relief of my job-share partner who hadn’t done a full week’s work since 1999.

The fallout of this unexpected turn of events was that it was Saturday morning, the first day of the Easter holidays, before the thought of my allotment even entered my head. Goodness only knew how big my carrots were going to be by the time I got round there! The beans were bound to be up by now and even the shallots would have thrown up their first little shoots.

I switched off the TV, shed my pyjamas and packed a hasty snack-bag of Pringles and orange juice. It was only as I picked up my bag, wheeled my bike over the front step and prepared to lock the door that I remembered what I had forgotten to remember.

Eek, the sweetcorn!

Those poor little pots in the spare room hadn’t been watered since before I’d left for Harrogate. I dropped my bike and dashed upstairs fearing the worst.

There they were; twelve white plastic cups that I’d filched from the staff room at school. Abandoned. Ruined.

The compost had completely dried out and shrunk away from the sides of the cups. Ten of the seeds had germinated but I almost felt glad for the two that hadn’t. All ten little seedlings were dead; shrivelled and crispy.

I gathered them up and carried them downstairs to put in the dustbin. I was cross with myself. And disappointed. Now I would have to sow some more. What a waste of time and effort.

I was still reeling from the effects of my illness, hence my over-reaction to a few withered seedlings. But I could sense the signs; it didn’t take much to send me into a spiral of gloom these days and I needed to nip this setback in the bud before it took hold.

I cycled off to Ivy Lane, pep-talking to myself all the way. This was a blip, a classic beginner’s mistake, no need to beat myself up over it, plus there was always tinned sweetcorn in an emergency.

‘Morning, Tilly,’ called Dougie, from the picnic bench outside the pavilion as I rode past. ‘Nice to see a bit a’ sun, after all the rain this week!’

‘Absolutely!’ I called back. Had it rained? I’d been in no fit state to notice. Rain was a good thing, though, at least the rest of my crops wouldn’t have failed from water-shortage in my absence. I couldn’t wait to inspect them.

Christine flagged me down with both arms as I passed her plot and I dismounted reluctantly.

‘Seedling Swap Sunday tomorrow, Tilly,’ she said in such a tone that implied my presence was a given.

I shook my head. ‘Maybe next year. I wouldn’t insult anyone by offering them any of my plants!’

‘Community, Tilly; it’s the spirit in which it’s given that counts.’

I made vague noises about seeing how the carrots had turned out which satisfied her and pushed my bike onwards. Charlie was loitering at the end of his plot, arms folded. Even though I was cryogenically storing my emotions for the foreseeable future, I must admit to casting an appreciative eye from his chunky boots, past his multi-pocketed army trousers and up to his white T-shirt, stretched tantalizingly across his broad chest. The petulant facial expression sort of ruined it, though.

‘You’re back, then.’ He turned and stomped off to his greenhouse.

I was never going to make it to my own plot at this rate, I thought with a sigh, and followed Mr Sulky Pants up the path.

‘Wow!’ I said to break the ice. ‘You’ve been busy!’

Every surface, every shelf and all the available floor space was crammed with seed trays brimming with bushy baby plants. I’d never really given greenhouses much thought, considering them only useful for growing tomatoes. If I was still here next year, I might get one.

‘I thought we were friends,’ said Charlie, not looking at me. He picked up a tray of seedlings and started transferring them one at a time into individual pots.

‘Ah,’ I said, nudging him teasingly, ‘we are friends. Have you missed me?’

‘I haven’t seen you for weeks.’

‘I’ve been ill.’

He stared right at me then, his eyes like searchlights checking my face for the truth as if he didn’t believe me. I felt the hairs stand up on the back of neck; he was making me feel uncomfortable.

‘That’s all right then.’ He suddenly grinned, and instantly he was back to friendly Charlie, the one with the twinkly eyes and the cheeky smile. I felt myself relax a bit and changed the subject.

‘They look healthy little chaps,’ I said, nodding at his seedlings.

‘Broad beans,’ he replied. ‘I’ve got tons, I might donate some tomorrow.’

So that’s what mine would look like with any luck. It struck me belatedly that he had sown his indoors, in the safety of his greenhouse. I had a pang of worry for my double row, left to battle with the elements.

‘Do they suffer from the rain if you plant them straight in the ground?’ I asked, unsure that I wanted to hear the answer.

He flicked a bean from a pile of unplanted seeds towards me and I picked it up. ‘Mice. That’s the main problem. A seed is like a golden nugget to them.’

‘They eat them?’ I swallowed. I didn’t think I could cope with another loss so soon after the sweetcorn fiasco.

‘Yep.’

I fled.

There was no sign of life on Gemma’s half – human, that is – though the plot itself was burgeoning: her raspberries were starting to sprout leaves, plump onions protruded from the soil and a variety of greenery poked through a sheet of netting.

One glance at my half confirmed that my fears had been valid.

This was a nightmare, after all my hard work. I had been so happy with my modest success and everything was ruined. Instead of an immaculate double row of broad bean shoots, there was just bare earth, punctuated by mouse-sized holes. Not a speck of greenery in sight. I ran to unlock the shed and grabbed my trowel. The path was dotted with dead patches; the weeds had gone, but so had half the grass. I must have trodden in the weedkiller and walked it up the path.

With a sinking heart I dropped to my knees and began to dig, hoping to prove myself wrong. Maybe they simply hadn’t germinated yet, or were just on the cusp of pushing their way skywards.

I had to hand it to the mice; they were thorough. I skimmed the earth with my trowel from one side of the plot to the other and didn’t find a single bean.

I sat back on my heels, knees caked in mud, panting with exertion, and tried to hold back the tears.

Only then did I notice the shallots, or rather lack thereof. I must have planted a hundred, easily. Now there were . . . I did a rough count . . . no more than fifteen left.

I didn’t understand. Why had everything gone wrong? I felt my fragile layer of happiness tear and peel away like the papery skin of a bulb.

All that remained were the carrots. Bloody stupid carrots. There were lots of them, their feathery fronds battling for space with their neighbours. Except for the end nearest the path, which was bare; presumably I had somehow managed to douse them with weedkiller too.

Maybe it was because I was still low from my illness, but suddenly I felt drained and weak. Disappointment flooded through me and I had an overwhelming urge to lie down and give myself over to a good cry.

‘Looks like the birds have had your shallots.’ I recognized Charlie’s voice but I couldn’t bear to answer him. I shut my eyes in a vain attempt to block the tears. ‘I was worried about you when you ran off.’

Go away. Leave me alone.

‘Lol!’

Oh no. That was Gemma’s unmistakable voice. ‘So much for the old beginner’s luck!’ she added with a chuckle.

Since losing James I had kept everything bottled up. No matter how awful I felt, I had been determined that no one would be able to tell. Now all my emotions came rushing to the surface.

I wiped a hand across my face, adding mud to the tear tracks, and stood up. My legs were shaking, my lungs on the verge of collapse and my head felt like concrete. I was a complete and utter failure.

‘I give up. I can’t do it,’ I sobbed. ‘I can’t even grow easy stuff. Everything I touch just dies.’

Gemma lurched towards me, her face crumpled with horror. ‘I was only joking . . . I didn’t mean—’

‘You don’t understand,’ I said, shaking my head like a loon. ‘I’ve failed. I’ve failed again. Why can’t I keep anything alive?’

I pushed past them, tears blinding my eyes.

‘Tills?’

‘Don’t call me that,’ I shouted. I wanted to go home, shut myself away and hide.

‘What about your shed?’ called Charlie.

‘What about it?’ I shouted. ‘I don’t care. I’m not coming back.’

What was the point? What was the bloody point?

I lay awake most of the night, taunted by my failure as a gardener, and finally fell asleep around dawn. Barely five minutes later, or so it seemed, I was rudely awakened by someone knocking loudly at my front door. Someone who clearly had a death wish.

I clomped down the stairs. My head was pounding, my eyes were sore from scrubbing at them with toilet paper and I had toffee popcorn stuck in my teeth. I flung open the door and prepared to let rip.

A short stout man with a ready smile, which only wavered momentarily as he took in my appearance, greeted me from a safe distance up my path. It was drizzling and he had his shoulders hunched up to his ears.

‘H’llo.’

‘Morning, Roy.’

Even though it wasn’t Christine in person, I knew I had to be on my guard. I had no intention of going to the allotment, community spirit or not.

‘C’n-I-c’me-in?’

I stood aside to let him in.

Drunk, I had no chance of understanding him; sober, I still struggled. The trick, I had found, was to imagine I had a UN translator in my head, slowing his words down and adding in the missing vowels.

‘Let me take your wet coat.’

He shrugged off his coat and I hung it over the banister and nodded towards the kitchen. He climbed up on a bar stool while I put the kettle on.

‘That was Christine’s chat-up line, thirty-odd years ago,’ he said wistfully.

‘Really?’ Hard to imagine Christine doing the chatting up. On the other hand, once she had made up her mind that Roy was the one . . .

‘I was driving to work, the back of the car full of half-used paint tins. It wasn’t a van, just a car I’d ripped the back seats out of. Anyhow, I looked down at my diary to check the address of the job and next thing I knew I’d hit a lamppost. Twelve gallon tins of paint came flying down the length of the car, blew their tops and covered me head to toe in emulsion. Now this was the seventies. None of your neutrals: mustard, avocado, brown . . . I staggered out of the car, dripping with paint, and knocked on the nearest door for help.

‘Christine answered wearing this flowery nightie. A vision, she was.’ He looked off into the distance and I had to stop myself from tittering. ‘“Let’s get you out of these wet clothes,” she said, all forceful. I couldn’t believe my luck. We were married six months later.’

‘That’s a lovely story, Roy,’ I said, placing a mug of coffee in front of him. And the longest speech I had ever heard him make.

‘Never said it to me again, mind you.’ He took a sip of coffee and winced. ‘Got any whisky?’

‘No.’

He shifted awkwardly in his seat. ‘So it just goes to show.’

He was working up to something. ‘What does?’ I asked.

‘Sometimes bad things happen for a reason. Like you having a bit of bad luck on the allotment.’

‘Do you really think so?’ My eyes filled with tears and I stared down at my mug. It was so sweet of him to come and cheer me up.

‘Don’t let it get you down. All gardeners lose a few crops now and again, it’s a steep learning curve and—’

‘Roy,’ I held a hand up, ‘I lost everything except the carrots. Why did I have to learn the hard way?’

‘Ha!’ He jabbed a finger at me. ‘You see, you’ve learned. You make a mistake, you move on.’ He paused and then added softly, ‘Same in life.’

I couldn’t respond to that. My throat felt tight and I hugged my mug to my chest for comfort. I couldn’t bear it when people were kind; it made it so much more difficult to control my feelings.

‘Come to Swapsies Day, or whatever the hell it’s called,’ said Roy.

My mouth twitched with a tiny smile at that, but I shook my head. ‘No. I don’t belong, I’ve got nothing to swap and I embarrassed myself yesterday.’

‘Heavens above, don’t I embarrass myself every day of the week?’ He flapped a hand at me. ‘And you’re one of us now, Tilly; course you belong. And if you’ll accept them, I’ve half a dozen pots of sweet peas you can have.’