by Claire Peate
“All right then. You got one in mind ’ave yer darlin’? Yer’ve seen bleedin’ loads today ’aven’t yer?”
“Nearly thirty.”
“Bloody ’ell. There’s more people goin’ in an’ out of yer ’ouse than when it was a brothel. Don’t know when I’ve seen so many people goin’ up an’ down that path. In daylight at least.”
“Pardon … what?” I stood on her steps and gaped at her.
“Didn’t they tell yer that then when yer bought the place? Knockin’ shop it was. Everyone around here knew about it. Notorious place … Course the police brought an end to it didn’t they? Raided it one night and arrested everyone, it were on the market a few days later. No one round ’ere could believe it sold so quickly, and at that price, given what it used to be.”
“Oh … my … God.” I leant heavily against her front door. A whole wave of memories came flooding back to me. “That explains why I used to get all those men knocking on the door late at night when I first moved in! Eeeww, Babs! They were looking for sex!”
“Ahh, they were ’armless enough men, most of ’em.” Babs said wistfully. “Just lookin’ for a bit of fun. One of ’em came ’ere once. Got the wrong address ’e did an’ I didn’t ’ave the heart to turn him away.”
“You … what…?”
“That’s how I met ’im, me boyfriend,” she nodded in the direction of her house. “Stopped chargin’ ’im after a week or so, of course. Weren’t right.” She laughed throatily. “’e couldn’t afford it, the amount we was goin’ for it!”
“I have to get back.” I said shakily and started to walk down the steps. “But please, can you just have a look at the man when he comes out. The younger man. You don’t have to say anything to him. Actually, please don’t say anything to him. At all.”
“All right but I gotta strain me parsnips in five minutes!” she called out behind me.
“You’re so going to love it here,” Amanda was saying to Robert and his father when I sped back into the ex-brothel I’d been calling home for the last five years, “And it’s such a cool house. I can’t believe Edda has the lot to herself, I mean how amazing is that? We should all get together when you move in and go out for lunch or something. We could show you round Brockley. Do you know it? It used to be, like, well drab and violent and stuff but now there’s all these cafés and posh houses.”
“Well, I’m sure Edda has a lot of thinking to do.” Willoughby senior got up off his stool. “But I must say thank you for your hospitality and it’s been great to meet you both. Personally, I hope Robert gets the room but I appreciate you must have a lot of good candidates.”
He was shaking our hands again and, combined with the eager go-on-tell-him-he-can-have-the-room look Amanda was giving me, I felt under enormous pressure. But I refused to bow. I would be strong and make my own way in this world; abandoned divorcee that I was.
“I’ll be in touch tomorrow if the room’s yours.” I fed Robert the same line I’d given to everyone that day, although it was given with more genuine feeling than most people had got. Together, Robert and I followed his father and Amanda out of the house.
“I am so sorry about my dad,” he whispered to me as we headed through the hallway and out towards my stately garden. “If I’d have known he was going to be like this I would have installed him in the café round the corner. I think it’s a mid-life crisis.” And then he added hastily, “Not that your friend is... Not at all. But … you know…” he petered out.
“I know,” I laughed. “But thanks for bringing him. It’s been … memorable.” I glanced to my left to see Babs, fag in, craning her neck to get a good look at Robert as we walked down the garden. Bless her.
“Well,” we were at his car, “I’ll maybe be in touch tomorrow.”
“Good stuff.” Robert got into the orange beetle, clunked the doors shut and manually wound down the windows.
“Yeah, she’ll, like, so be in touch tomorrow morning!” shouted Amanda, over the roar of the tinny engine. Clearly it was a car that broke down quite often.
Robert and his famous father drove off towards Greenwich and, across the garden wall, Babs stubbed out her fag on her window sill and gave me the thumbs up.
Eleven
“Beth can you come round? You really have to come round to my place!” I was virtually shouting at the phone handset.
“Oh, honey, I can’t,” Beth was saying. “Is everything OK? Are you all right? How did the interviewing go?”
“It went really well and I’ve got a new lodger. And I’ve got a knot garden.”
“A what? I can’t hear you, sweetie. A knot garden?” I’d finally managed to reach her on her mobile but the reception was dreadful.
“Yes! Can’t you come over? I have so much news! Where are you?”
“I don’t know. Where are we Jack? Where? Burpham? We’re in Burpham, Eds!”
“Burpham? Where the hell is Burpham? It sounds awful!”
“Jack says it’s just north of Guildford. We’re two miles north of Guildford. We’re house hunting, my love. You should see Burpham though – I know it sounds disgusting but it’s so pretty you’d absolutely love it here, I know you would. Can’t afford a thing but it’s fun pootling around. They have duck ponds in this area of Surrey, Eds! Duck ponds! And picket fences and village greens and—”
“They’re taking our skip away Beth!” I broke into her speech. “It’s happening right now! You really should be here!”
“Noooo!” the tinny voice on the mobile shrieked. And then, crossly, “Well, pull over then if I’m going to put you off driving.” I could make out Jack muttering darkly in the background.
“I’m in my bay window,” I continued, “and there’s an enormous yellow council truck and they’re picking up our skip! There are chains attached to the skip corners and the man’s got into the cab and – yes – he’s started to haul it up onto the back of the truck.” I could feel a lump in the back of my throat. Our skip! Our last adventure together was being taken away and destroyed: the last memory of the two of us together.
“Oh, honey. Is it ready for taking away? The last time I came round to yours I didn’t really notice it. I thought the plants were still OK.”
“No. They’re all dead. I didn’t know how I was going to water it, without dragging a hose across the main road. And so they got dry and died. The geraniums were looking really bad. And actually that dead-dog smell was coming back.”
“Oh well maybe it’s not such a bad thing it’s going then, honey, but I am sorry. It is sad that it’s going.” I could barely make out her words: Burpham may be posh but it sounded revolting and it had bad signal. Why would she want to move to Burpham? How bad was South East London that she felt the need to do that?
“OK! Our skip is on the lorry now!” I shouted into the phone.
“Are you all right? Not too sad?”
“Yes! No! Sort of!” I watched as the lorry began to slowly pull away, leaving a yawning big nothingness on the pavement directly opposite my house: a large expanse of pavement with a dusting of topsoil and a few geranium flowers. “It’s gone now. Our skip has gone.”
There was a crackly pause on the other end of the phone. “Well, at least you … skip removed. Which was what you’ve … forever.”
“But I like it now! It meant something!”
“I can’t hear you! I’m sorry, love, the reception’s … poor… Jack can you stop we’re … signal! Pull over!”
“I have other news!” I shouted, moving away from the window now there was no reason to be there. “My house was a brothel!”
“A brothel? Did you say it was a brothel?”
“Yes! A brothel! Babs told me!”
“Bloody hell, Edda!” I could hear her laughing. “Is that why there was a pole in the cellar, Eds? Was … pole dancing?”
“Oh my God!” I shouted. “I thought that was scaffolding!”
We were both laughing now. “Tell me … lodger? Nice?”
“Yes! It’s a man! He’s called Robert! He’s nice! You’d like him!”
“Handsome?”
“Not like Guy! But he’s sort of handsome. He’s nice! He has floppy brown hair like that boy you went out with at school. He’s nice!”
“Floppy what?”
“Hair! Floppy hair!”
She was laughing, cutting in and out of signal but I could hear the laughter and it made me laugh.
“…darling … was there! … free Sunday?”
“Beth? I can’t hear you! What did you say?”
“Phone … shall I?”
“Yes! Call me when you can! I’ve got the dig tonight! Can you hear me? I’m really nervous! It’s the dig tonight! I’m nervous!”
“Good luck! Good luck darling I … and in … is nervous!”
“Beth!”
“Can… ”
“Beth? Beth!”
Twelve
I don’t want to go I paced the floor of my bedroom at one in the morning. I do want to go!
It was exactly like the night of the Brockley Spades meeting, except this time Finley was staying out of my way. Which was a shame because I really needed him to be here and do the freaky Paul McKenna thing to me again. Perhaps it would be easier when Robert moved in next week and I could bounce ideas off my new lodger. But, obviously, without giving away the fact that I was in a secret society…
More than anything I wished that Beth was with me. She would tell me to get a bloody grip, girl, for God’s sake, and stop dithering and – importantly – she would tell me what to wear on an illicit night-time guerrilla garden adventure. Yes, it was dark and no one would be able to see the subtleties of charcoal versus black but I did feel that – if I went – I ought to make every effort because Guy was, really, very handsome indeed and I didn’t want to put him off by wearing grotty clothes.
Eventually at midnight I’d decided what I was going to wear without help from any pregnant or non-pregnant people or feline types but all on my very own. Obviously something dark, that much was certain so I’d laid out anything duller than magenta on the bed and considered the options. Anything flimsy or embroidered was out – I was after all going to be gardening. And anything too wintery was put away because the nights were getting warmer and no doubt I’d be getting hot and sweaty à la Front Garden Devastation With a Hatchet. The last cull of my clothing choice was the removal of anything that was too loved because it would probably get ruined. So I ended up with dark, attractive but basically expendable clothes: black jeans that were too tight and a black t-shirt with a picture of a man in a beret looking handsome and angsty that Beth had once given me but I’d never worn.
Wardrobe sorted I then had time on my hands to feel the awful doubt creep up on me again. Did I really want to be doing this? Think of the youth in the public school boy uniform with the pocket full of acorns. It had to be connected to the Brockley Spades: was I really going to be a part of a society that did something like that? Had Jake paid the youth a visit? But then I might be mistaken, and besides there were good reasons for going, too. I would make a list: a list would make it all much clearer.
Over the last few days Amanda with her magazine-page-wisdom had been teaching me to make lists of everything, from “What I want to achieve now my marriage is over” to “Moving on: a victim’s guide to defining your three steps to happiness”.
REASONS TO GO TONIGHT
Guy
New friends? (Neil & Anja from V-2 café, others)
Owe it to Eustace (knot garden/sundial)
Gets me out of the house/anti-Miss Havisham
Beth cross if don’t go
Fin cross if don’t go
Guy
Famous Five never passed up an opportunity
Guy
REASONS NOT TO GO TONIGHT
Acorn-boy/ getting into bad company?
It’s illegal (or is it?)
Hard work late at night
Jake scary. Eustace bit weird (?)
The list seemed pretty conclusive. The reasons to go far outweighed the reasons to stay in and watch TV.
And just when I was thinking I ought to reconsider a few more elements on the list it was all decided for me. There was a soft knock at my front door. It would be Guy.
I trembled down the stairs and fumbled with the mortice lock.
“Guy. Hi,” I managed to get it open and there he was, smouldering in the moonlight, leaning up against the wall. Any thoughts of not taking part tonight were instantly dismissed.
“Are you ready?” he said in a soft illicit-night-time-activity voice. “Sorry, I’m late.”
“Ngh.”
“Che Guevara.” He pointed to my chest. “I knew you had the fighting spirit in you, Edda Mackenzie. You respect the legend too, do you?”
So that’s who was on the front of my t-shirt. The name was definitely familiar but I still wasn’t sure who he was exactly: definitely something to do with South America and guns. But apart from that … I resisted the urge to tell Guy that when Beth had bought the t-shirt for me I’d thought it was a picture of a cloth-capped Jesus. No point letting on I wasn’t the inferno-burning guerrilla fighter he thought I was. After all, Alan Titchmarsh himself had said my use of colour had been “imaginative” so I had every right to take up the guerrilla gardening mantle.
“Thanks for the garden.” I whispered as I quietly closed the door behind me and we headed out into the night. Fortunately Babs was indoors and hadn’t witnessed us leave.
“Well, I’m glad you like it.” I could see Guy grinning as we picked our way through the formal gardens. “It was Eust’s idea, the Elizabethan theme. I wanted a Scottish wilderness to remind you of home and your ancestors but he wouldn’t have it.”
“Well it would be hard to recreate a Scottish wilderness in a small London front garden.”
“Personally, I think your devastated wilderness was pretty good. But Eust would never allow that in Brockley.”
I laughed. “Eustace wouldn’t allow it?”
Guy raised his eyebrows, or at least I think he did in the dim light. “Wait until you know him better and you’ll get what I mean. Now hurry up or we’ll be really late.”
There was a black transit van parked in a darkened corner on the approach to Brockley Station. Behind it, as Guy and I walked to the site, I could make out that the dark grass slopes were crawling with black-clad guerrilla gardeners moving silently. In his all-night Mini Mart directly opposite, Mr Iqbal would be completely unaware that so many people were right outside and preparing to move into action.
We crossed the road and joined them, standing now beside the open van. “Right, Edda,” Guy whispered to me, leaning in close, the curls of his long hair brushing my face, “First of all… ”
And he said some things while I just stood and enjoyed the closeness of him, the brush of his hair, the smell of him, delighting in the fact he saw me as some sort of passionate heroine. Which of course I was…
“ – so, good luck,” he said and, winking, walked off to the slopes to take charge.
I stood on the pavement.
Right.
It was my first guerrilla garden and I hadn’t listened to a thing. Nothing. Not my finest hour.
But how hard could it be? After all I had gardened a skip and won an invite to the secret society on merit. So surely this wasn’t going to be so hard: get gloves, pull up weeds, plant non-weeds, kiss Guy. That was pretty much what I had to do for the rest of the night to make it a success wasn’t it?
Arming myself with gloves and a bag I headed for a space on the slopes and began my career as a proper, bona fide guerrilla gardener, greeting the people I’d met in the ballroom a few nights earlier. I was buoyed up with the same feeling I’d had on top of the skip that night, although this time my night gardening was without fags, cheap Cava and a pregnant friend to enjoy them with. And no one was wearing a sombrero for disguise.
It was difficult to see in the far-off street lights ex
actly what I was pulling up: weeds and grasses I presumed but, I cringed, dog mess was definitely in the mix. I dug gingerly at first, pulling up tuft of grass after tuft of grass but gradually I got more confident and started to throw myself into it. Soon the smell of the bared earth in the cold morning took over from the inner-city smell. It was rewarding, working my way to the boundaries of another gardener’s clearings: bagging the litter, tearing up the weeds and clearing the way for the planting later.
Towards the top of the slope Jake – the man built like a double-fronted wardrobe – was wrenching up enormous weed bushes and saplings in the same way that I had pulled up clumps of grass. Nearer to me, Neil and his wife Anja, from V-2, were clearing brambles and moaning about how hard it was. I even saw the woman who I’d followed into the Working Men’s Club, this time without her pashmina and dressed from head to foot in what looked like Cath Kidston gardening gear. She was daintily trowelling the earth and trying not to get her pinny too dirty, shuffling along the slope on a Liberty print knee pad.
If anyone spoke it was rarely and whatever was said was always whispered. For the most part the only sounds were the scraping of spades on stony soil, the soft ripping of roots and the rumble of the wheelie bins as they were filled and then loaded into the van.
“Hey, Edda,” Guy came over to me and crouched beside me. “How’s it going?” he whispered.
He was pleased with what I’d done, saying he’d been watching me – at which point I melted – and that I’d earned my stripes as a guerrilla gardener. “Most people flake out after the first hour. Gardening at three in the morning is harder than you would think.”
“It’s three in the morning?” I checked my watch, angling it towards the far off street light. How had two hours gone by?
“Come down to the van, Neil’s got cakes and coffee.” He took hold of my glove, whipped it off and held my newly bared hand. “Let’s go,” he pulled me down the slope with him.
What was it with this man? Had he gone to some School For The Especially Sexy where he’d learnt these moves? How could pulling off a gardening glove do that to me? And how could someone be so confident they could just hold your hand and know that you wouldn’t pull away? OK so looking like an Adonis probably helped. No one could possibly pull their hand away from someone who looked like that.
