The Insistent Garden

by Rosie Chard

“Archie?” I called.

  His face appeared in the hole, cheeks flushed. “Coming up?”

  The ladder shook as I climbed up and hauled my body up through the opening. It took a moment to get my bearings. Floorboards had never made it up through the hatch and the span of the joists was intimidating, the way they stretched so far yet seemed so tenuously attached to the wall. And spiders lived here. I could see that straightaway; their webs draped the beams like never-washed net curtains.

  “Archie. . .” I looked round. “Is this what my attic looks like?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Edie, have you never been up there?”

  “I. . . no.”

  “Well, it might be a bit like this one, but don’t forget: we live in semi-detached houses. This attic,” his voice dropped, “will be more like the one on the other side of you. That might have a proper floor, of course, but see the beams, they’ll be the same.” He swiveled his feet and stepped in the direction of the far corner of the attic. I followed and we picked our way across the joists like a pair of tightrope walkers until we reached a pile of boxes stacked up against the far wall. I held Archie’s waist to keep my balance as he rummaged and sorted, eventually slipping out a heavy book from beneath a pile of Railway Modeller magazines.

  “This is for you,” he announced, lurching backwards then slapping his palm on a nearby beam.

  “What is it?” I tightened my grip on his elbow.

  “It’s a book, sweetheart. For you. Come back down and I’ll show it to you.”

  We teetered back across the room and after much shifting of weight and passing the book back and forth descended the ladder. We sat on the top stair. Archie made a great show of blowing off the dust and straightening the cover before he laid the book on my lap. “This is for you, Edie,” he said, grandly, “It belonged to my mother, and her mother before her. God knows where she got it from, but I do know it’s old.”

  No title, just a gold poppy embossed onto a deep blue cover. I turned to the first page then glanced at my watch. “Archie, I’m sorry but I don’t think I have time for this now, I have to get back.”

  “Course you do. I’ll slip it into my shed later. Don’t forget to collect it before it rains.”

  “I won’t. And thank you.” I smiled; it felt comfortable on my face.

  This book is a muster of various once forlorn hopes and

  skirmishing parties now united with better arms and larger aim.

  Such a beginning. I read the sentence twice as I adjusted my present on my pillow. The English Flower Garden was the thickest book I had ever held and I turned the dried-up pages cautiously, fearing they might crack. I began to flick through but almost immediately the book fell open on a double page spread of Lilium, ‘white-robed apostles of hope,’ full of tiny ink drawings and even tinier captions. I pulled the blanket up over my shoulders and settled down to read.

  Lilium longiflorum came first, its petals curled outwards like the mouth of a baby bird jostling to catch its mother’s eye, then Lilium martagon, thrusting out orange anthers and finally, Lilium regale, loveliest of all, holding up tiny throats, stained by a recently swallowed juice. I wanted to pluck it right off the page and hold it in my hand. But I couldn’t. I just memorized the page and moved onto the next, Linaria

  glauca, then the next, Yucca flaccida and then the next. My mind sated, I lay my head down beside Veronica spicata and was drifting into sleep when I freed up a fresh thought. I would learn everything there was to know about plants. Not just snippets from Archie but learn everything I needed to know. I was ready to step right inside the botanical world.

  19

  Sewing weightless objects into the ground was harder than it looked. It was eight o’clock in the evening by the time I’d sprinkled seeds over the old hawthorn patch after an hour spent kneeling on the ground, fluffing up clumps of sticky soil and smoothing amateur footprints from the centre of the bed. My father was reading the newspaper when I returned to the kitchen to wash my hands. “NASA HAILS ‘PERFECT EARLY MISSION’” brushed my consciousness as I sat down at the table.

  “I was wondering.” I began.

  “Mmm?”

  “The grass is very long this year and the ladder gets caught when it’s wet so I thought maybe I could cut it. . .”

  “Hmm.”

  “And I thought, maybe I could even put a few flowers in at the far end. Archie has some seeds he doesn’t want and. . .”

  My father’s eyes caught the light as he looked up. “Do what you like.”

  The shed door opened more easily the second time around. My footprints lay undisturbed in the dust and I put my feet inside them as I crossed the room. The lawnmower felt as heavy as a wardrobe when I pulled on the handles and it whined softly on its way to the grass. It would not cut, every working part congealed with age, so I looked for a lubricant to get it going. But even the oilcan needed oiling so I went to find Archie who seemed amused at the thought of anyone cutting such long grass with a mower. ‘You’ll need to shear it first,’ he said, passing a shiny pair of blades over the wall, ‘then rake till your arms ache.’ It took a week to cut it all. A week of rushing outside when no one was home, of raking grass into gently warming piles and returning again and again to the rogue stalks that snapped upright behind me every time I’d gone over them with the mower. Every now and then I uncovered objects lost in the grass: a doll with working eyelids that rolled its eyes when I picked it up and a rotted glove with fingers the size of a child’s. Calluses had begun to sprout at the base of my thumbs but I didn’t mind, I got pleasure from those rough little circles, and found myself rubbing them whenever I was alone, recalling the pleasure of working in the garden, the unexpected pleasure of refreshing my view.

  “Bloody hell, what’s your father been up to!” Archie stood in his garden, staring across at the high wall. “He must have added another six inches at the end since I last looked.”

  I followed his gaze. “He wanted to make the most of the dry weather.”

  “Still nothing holding it up, I see,” he said, scrambling over into my garden. “Don’t let him get any ideas about my side, will you?”

  “We like you,” I said, without thinking.

  “I’m glad to hear it, as I’m standing in your territory.”

  He walked along the base of the wall, rubbing his knuckle into the small of his back. “When’s Wilf due back?”

  “Not for a few hours.”

  He surveyed the brickwork, then let out a word that sounded like “gristle” as he spotted a bubble in the mortar. “This thing’s on the piss, love, I don’t think I like it.”

  “But it’s not high enough yet.”

  “Sweetheart,” he took my hand in his. “High enough for what?”

  “To keep him out.”

  “Edie, he’s not going to climb over.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “And if he really wanted to get to you he could knock on the front door, like the postman.”

  Elastic bands jumped into my mind. “Archie, I have to check something.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the front garden.”

  I rushed in the back door, through the house and out into the front garden. Although adept at scrambling over walls, Archie was not a runner, and as he caught up with me he wheezed like a constipated donkey.

  Approaching the hedge I noticed a strip of newly flattened leaves between the two gardens.

  “Looks like a fox trail,” Archie said, coming up beside me.

  “Yes, it must be that, yes, a fox trail.”

  “Edie, what are you worrying about?”

  “I. . . he wouldn’t come into our front garden, would he?”

  Archie sighed. “Edie, he can go where he likes.”

  “He wouldn’t though, would he?”

  Archie wiped his hand over his bald patch. “He hasn’t yet, so why should anything change?”

  “Yet?”

  “Look, love,” he said, layi
ng his hand on my shoulder, “Maybe you should try to forget about him? Just for a while.”

  “How can I?” I said.

  He bent forward and picked up a handful of soil. “By getting your hands dirty.”

  20

  The flowers in Archie’s garden were arranged as if for a painting. My garden was in a state of upheaval: mortar bags lined the wall, the beds lay naked and ready for planting, the lawn was stippled with tufts of rough grass, and as I surveyed it from my bedroom window I realized I needed to make a plan for this piece of ground that had been so unexpectedly given up to me. I hurried down into the kitchen and looked for something on which to draw. But mine was a paperless house. Apart from the daily newspaper, telephone directories were the densest repositories of text that gained entry to our home. I rummaged in the sideboard but found nothing but a pile of stained receipts left by the brick merchant. The newspaper lay unguarded on the table but I ignored it, went over to the pantry and opened the door. Tins of peas sat quietly on the top shelf. I peeled off a label, picked up a pencil that lay on the table and went outside.

  I had never learned to draw. Straight lines had kinks and circles had straights and even a simple rectangle taxed my abilities so the edge of the plot was tired and ragged. Drawing the centre of the garden was harder still. The old hawthorn bed was all I managed to get down on the page, hovering beside Archie’s wall like a sulky child. I sucked the end of the pencil, tasting lead, and wondered from what place ideas come. I thought of Snowshill. I tried to recall its shape, its interlocking rooms and the loose piles of colour, and as I did so a square appeared. It hovered, lost on the page. I rubbed it out. Then a circle appeared. I rubbed it out. Then I pictured my father standing at the kitchen window and a new line crawled across the paper, thick and black, it crossed at right angles between the two walls. A new wall. I rubbed it out. Then the line returned, dots placed in a row. Trees. I would have trees. No one would be able see me behind them. I rubbed it out. I thickened the line of the existing high wall; specks of lead gathered; I blew them off. Finally, a curved line curled its way across the paper and a half circle dared to touch the edge of the high wall in two places.

  Archie was feeling the waist of one of his prize marrows when I eased my body over his garden wall.

  “I sense something important is coming my way,” he said looking up.

  “I need your opinion.”

  “Made a new skirt?”

  I glanced down at the swath of material tethered to my waist. “No, I’ve drawn a picture of the garden. I’d like to know what you think.”

  Archie smiled. “Forward planning. Brilliant.”

  I knelt down beside him and smoothed the label across my knee. “This black line shows the wall, ours, not yours.”

  “Edie, I can see that.”

  “And here are the new trees.”

  “You’re planting trees?”

  “Well. . . one day, I thought. . .”

  “In a semi-circle?”

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “I love it.”

  “And here’s a blue flower bed along the back fence. It’ll be filled with nothing but blue flowers and —”

  “Why blue?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  He folded long fingers over his knees. “My mother told me blue is the colour of dreams.”

  “Is it?”

  Archie’s pupils were dilated, the irises flecked with orange. “Let’s wait and see.”

  My mother told me. Pieces of damp plaster stuck to my fingers as I felt my way down into the cellar that night. The books lay in silent rows, their spines begging me to choose, so I lifted out a thin volume, its cover the colour of vellum, and flicked through the pages, which pushed air up onto my face. But I didn’t read the words. All I could see was the drawing of a garden in my head, the shaky lines, the scattered dots, the picture of something that didn’t yet exist.

  Just then a piece of paper flew out and landed on the floor. When I picked it up I saw it was a receipt. The date had faded with time but the name of the shop was clear. ‘Jones Bookshop’ could have been printed that morning.

  34 Ethrington Street

  Billingsford,

  Northamptonshire

  September 18th 1968

  Dear Gill,

  You’re right, it was a bit cheesy, quoting from a greeting card last time, but those rhymes get to you don’t they? It’s a clever bloke who can write a little poem that makes a tough old bird like me think twice. Talking of clever blokes, I met Martin Moist in the pub last night. Didn’t tell you about him, did I? His dad used to have a grocer’s up on Wiggington Street — he knows all about the hell I go though trying to sort the Sunday papers at four in the morning — anyway, he works at the brickworks, does deliveries — so he tells me this long story, one of those that never end — when there’s time to order a pack of pork scratchings and pop to the loo and you haven’t missed a thing — when he starts telling me about this house he delivers to. Been going for years, he says, and there’s this mad family living there. So, what do they want with all those bricks I’m thinking when he drops the bombshell. The main madwoman always wears red. Now I’m really interested. The main madwoman must be that woman, that mad red woman of ours. But Gill, what’s more he knows all about her, went to school with her and her brother. So I waited for him to tell me, (got another lager and lime) and it all came out. They were both a bit odd as children, their father died in an accident at the factory and their mother was never home. The woman in red, called Vivian (bit fancy) was the school bully. She started young. She had kids crying all the time and found a way into the plumbing and knew how to flush the loos when the little ones were sitting on them. Then she’d follow them home and yank on their hoods when they tried to run away. I listened and all the time I’m thinking of that red stare and I’m thinking of how awful it must’ve been when he starts telling me how she never stopped being a bully, how she lives alone, and now even grown men are scared of her. Even Martin Moist with his big brickie shoulders crosses the street when she appears on the horizon.

  Couldn’t resist another rummage in the greeting cards just now. Those little messages do make me want to cry. I wrote one down for you Gill, but rubbed it out.

  Jean

  21

  I’d never been to the top of Adlington Street before. My family’s shoes often sat on a shelf in the cobblers at the bottom of the road but the area beyond was unknown to me. I soon discovered the cracks between the pavement stones were spaced more widely in this part of town and as I placed my foot in the centre of each slab I reached the top of the hill quickly. I fingered the receipt in my pocket while I gazed along a narrow garden path. It led to up to a front door with a hand-written ‘Open’ sign taped to the top.

  Jones Bookshop was part of a house; I could see bookshelves through the bay window as I approached the entrance. I pushed the door open as quietly as I could but a bell rung shrilly from somewhere above me. A man looked up from behind a large desk — its surface heavy with papers — at the end of the room. His body jumped into a greeting posture. “Good morning!” he said.

  I felt like his first ever customer, such was the delight in his eyes.

  “Morning.”

  “Harold Jones,” he said, coming towards me and gathering up my hand.

  “Edith. . . Stoker.”

  “Oh, my,” he said, loosening his grip. “I was wondering when you might come.”

  I stepped back. “What do you mean?”

  “My, my.” He twisted the tip of his beard into a point. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

  I glanced over my shoulder; no more than six steps to the door. “Sorry, I don’t.”

  “You did know this is where your mother used to work, I assume.”

  “No. I didn’t. Here?”

  “Right here.” He smiled. “We worked together for several years.”

  I didn’t know I’d been waiting for this moment to arrive. “Did
she. . . did she. . .” I scanned the room; a mug sat innocently on a nearby shelf, “. . . did she like tea?”

  He blinked. “Well, yes. She liked tea. She was particularly good at taking tea breaks, come to think of it.” He smiled. “One of the best.” He looked over his shoulder. “I don’t have a spare chair but would you like to sit on my desk with me and talk?”

  “Yes. . . yes I would.”

  Harold Jones preferred desks to chairs. I could see that from the way he opened a hip-wide space into the papers on his desk and lifted his body up. I eased myself up onto the other end.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you now, Edith?” he said.

  “Eighteen.”

  He seemed to be seeing something in the air. “I can’t believe it’s been that long.”

  “Since she worked here?”

  He smiled awkwardly. “Yes, since she worked here. I was very fond of your mother, you know.”

  I squeezed the edge of the desk, trying to summon the courage. “What was she like?”

  Harold Jones gazed across the room. “Well. . . she was quiet when she arrived. I never knew what she was thinking. But she settled in and she was a good worker and yet she knew how to relax. We spent many happy tea breaks on the sofa, reading, and I soon realized that she’d found something here that she hadn’t found anywhere else.”

  “What did she find?”

  “Poetry.”

  “You mean her books?”

  “Which books?”

  “Her boxes of books down in the cell —”

  “I’m not sure what you mean but I’m talking about the books here, the ones she was selling to customers. She read them all. Then she started buying them for her friends.”

  “She had friends?”

  “Oh, yes, they often came in when she was at work, then she started taking books home and reading them to your father, she’d ask me to help her choose the titles and, oh. . . are you alright?”

  “Yes, I. . .”

  “Can I get you something, a glass of water? You look pale.”