Love, Lust and Landscaping

by Morgan Rouge

  ‘OK! Lunchtime! You have one hour then it is back to work!’

  For the first time since three hours previously at nine in the morning, Star spoke;

  ‘Where can we get something to eat?’

  ‘Eh, there’s a Gregg’s a ten minutes down the road or a Tescos ten minutes in that direction’. Clearly she was the only one who had brought sandwiches. Hamish, Gerry, Star and Steve all decided on Tescos and slowly wandered off, chatting and smoking to get lunch. Left by herself, she carefully opened up the lunchbox and found a little note written in a smelling pen on pink paper in the shape of a heart. Pony! She thought endearingly.

  Dear Bryony! Have a nice day at the office: bring me back some geraniums for our kitchen garden! Lots of love, xx oo Pony oo xx P.s I will check your facebook and keep you updated on any goings on - check your mobile!

  Pony had been up unusually early that morning to make Bryony her favourite sandwiches: chicken and sweetcorn. Like a wonderful stay-at-home-flatmate she had cooked the chicken the night before and had went to the shop to buy ribena, an apple and a twix. For energy! She had chorused as she dotted around the kitchen. Leaving the note was the final touch which made Bryony smile.

  To outsiders, their relationship might and indeed did seem quite strange. They were as close as sisters, partly because neither of them had any siblings themselves and partly because they just had so much in common. They were both calm and understanding and saw each other for who they were. They of course had had their fair share of arguments around the flat but on the whole they got on remarkably well, considering they had lived together for two years. She checked her phone and found a message from Pony.

  D txtd moi! wnts 2 go for dinner & movie nxt wk. EEEE!!!! xx oo Pony oo xx

  I will have to reply to that later, thought Bryony as she stuffed her iPhone back into her small bag. From afar, she could see the motley crew of her ‘co-workers’ returning. Steve and Gerry appeared to be chatting with Star interspersing the conversation with thoughts of her own. Hamish, meanwhile, appeared to be silent, thinking to himself.

  As Bryony watched him from afar (he didn’t know who she was looking at from such a distance so she could look properly) she realised that the fact that he was really irritating did not detract from his seriously good looks. As he walked, thinking to himself, he was beautiful, like a model. It was going to be really difficult not to fancy him for the next two weeks. With all of her might, Bryony took her eyes away from his delicious body and returned to her message from Pony.

  Woop! Woop! Tlk L8r! xx

  At five o’clock, dusk was beginning to settle and cars were beginning to switch on their lights which, on the roundabout, was blinding. Surveying their work, Bryony felt they had done loads. They had taken off the layer of grass, had dug out some bad earth with stones in it and put in soft earth. Her and Star had even started planted a few geraniums in the corner.

  ‘An okay start everyone, tomorrow I want you back here in time for nine, ok? Absolutely no excuses’ he smiled and clapped his hands awkwardly, before they all started to walk to the bus. She briefly looked at him as they wandered off: when he didn’t shout his voice was soft, gentle and had a slight, indeed almost imperceptible, Scottish accent. It was going to be a hard fortnight: never mind the digging, just simply trying not to totally fancy Hamish.

  Chapter Two

  He fell dramatically on to his bed where he proceeded to lie, hands over his face and groaning. He had felt hot all day and driving back he had come out in a sweat. It had been a torturous day, with a constant disagreement between his passions and his head. Bryony, Bryony, Bryony!

  How am I ever going to stop thinking about her? His eyes closed and he recounted every aspect of her body in her mind. When he could (in other words when he thought no one else was looking), he had taken a peek at her and had a clear picture of her. Her luscious long blonde hair was fine and delicate and blew free and wild in the wind, licking the air at every gust of wind: why couldn’t she just tie it up? He thought angrily. His eyes moved up to her face and he recounted that she had a delicate and refined face with a light, almost angelic complexion. Her long and curving eyelashes, meanwhile, made even her angry temper beautiful. She had a slightly upturned nose which was small and delicate and perfectly proportioned on her face. And her body! A fine neck, slightly tanned, led down to her high shoulder blades which had been perfectly emphasised with her plain t-shirt. Her breasts! He had been totally unable to stop looking: pert and rounded in her tight and clinging t-shirt. His mind slowly moved down her body in his mind, hungrily. A small waist which curved into rounded hips and a perfectly rounded bum. Her legs, which were strong yet slim had led his eyes down to her small feet and slender ankles. Her arms were toned and slightly tanned and had had a small charm bracelet around her wrist. Not fair! He thought, his heart twisted in agony and, as he conceded, lust.

  During the entire day, it had taken every sinew of his body to not just continually watch her as her small, well-defined body had slowly and surely dug the earth, her bum and breasts wiggling slightly as she dug deeper and with more strength. He didn’t want anyone see him being anything other than intimidating and awful. It was essential for their programme, to change their lives around. She could not get in the way of his programme. A couple of times he had briefly watched her and he thought that Gerry had caught him. Turning away he had gone and worked on something else, but he couldn’t let it become a habit, they might get the wrong idea and realise that his theatrical person was, well, just an act.

  He turned over onto his front, imagining her body close to her. He would love just to touch her, to caress her hips, her lips, watch her eyelashes close, close to his face. How was he going to last an entire fortnight without just touching her, laughing with her, trying to chat to her to get to know her? But, from far away in his mind came the words she is a criminal. She has done a crime and she has to pay for it. She is paying for it by working for you. You have been here before, and it was neither enjoyable nor healthy. Don’t go near her, don’t entertain her, don’t get involved, you know how this ends.

  And of course, he did know how it ended: his heart broken and followed by months and months of pain and hardship, embarrassment and letters full of empty and insincere apologies. I cannot go back there, he thought.

  But Bryony was so beautiful! And her temper! Every time she had got angry at him for shouting at her, her eyes had flickered dangerously, behind those long and seductive eyelashes. He knew she wanted to shout back at him, but her pride was too much. Instead, she had returned to digging with, he imagined, a picture of his face in the earth where her trowel was.

  And when he had called her a slacker! She had almost attacked him! He didn’t think that she could like him that much because of his behaviour towards her, he thought ruefully. She was probably fuming as she listened to her music on the way home on the bus.

  What did she do? What did she do? These questions reverberated around his head. What did she do? What was her crime? Perhaps the severity of the crime could have an impact on the way he viewed her? She seemed different from the rest of them, somehow. Well, he had worked with Gerry and Steve before. Star was also new, but she came with a reputation and some of the other landscape artists had come across her already. She had committed so many crimes that it left her few other opportunities. Her social worker said that Star wanted to return to a normal life and normal society and so she had been given a place on his course (not that she knew why she was there). He ran an intense programme and worked well for small-time criminals. He hoped Star would be able to complete it.

  ‘Girl problems?’ his flatmate Phil poked his head around the corner to see Hamish’s hands over his face, lying on his front in apparent agony.

  ‘You could say that’.

  ‘Well, I know what you need, a run, a shower, food and a pint! Ten minutes, that’s all you’ve got!’

  Hours later, they were both sat in their local pub, The Thistle, drinking a pin
t. To others in the pub, the corner table occupied by two men would have gone unnoticed. Both tall with muscular physiques and roughly in their early thirties, the old men in the pub would not have batted an eyelid. However, in a club or more fashionable bar in the centre of Glasgow, Hamish and Phil always had a trouble getting rid of women. Whilst Hamish used his job to create a muscular physique, Phil was a successful model, posing for advertising for companies and magazines around Scotland. Both dressed in shirts and jeans, they looked laid back with each other and comfortable in each other’s presence.

  ‘So, let me guess, Ham, she is a new recruit and she is mmm fine?’

  Hamish, nodded, hands returning to his face. What had happened to Hamish? Thought Phil. He has hardly said one word for the last couple of hours! Recounting their years of friendship together, Phil struggled to think of another woman who Hamish was so obviously wrought over. Usually he was excited but not in mortal agony. Well, he could think of one...

  ‘But, she’s a criminal. Phil’ Bingo, thought Phil.

  ‘I see. What was it she did?’

  ‘I have no idea. But it doesn’t matter, does it? She has done a crime and now she’s doing time’.

  ‘She could, of course, be innocent’.

  ‘I know in TV shows there are always people who are innocent and yes, sometimes it does happen. But, Phil I think almost all of the time, they have done the crime and have to do what society says’.

  ‘Maybe it is just a small crime?’

  ‘And what about Melissa? She was hardly an armed, masked and vicious band robber or murderer. But she still did crimes against people and those people lost out, perhaps they find it more difficult to trust people now because of her’.

  ‘Well, you only have two weeks of this hot babe and then she is out of your life for ever!’

  Hamish covered his hands over his face and returned to groaning. She was so beautiful and sexy, how was he ever going to get her out of his head?

  * * *

  The next day and the next and the next, she did not make it any easier for him. Turning up at the roundabouts at quarter to nine with her big puffer jacket and fur hood, she look like an inuit, with her pink cheeks, wrapped up warm. The wind had become a little colder, perhaps it was from the north, so she had also put on a figure-hugging jumper and low-rise jeans instead of leggings and a t-shirt.

  Whilst they were working, he could not help but watch her from time to time to get a good look at her. With those low-rise jeans she inadvertently showed the small of her back when she was working, as her jumper (when she had thrown aside her puffer jacket) rode up. Small and well-defined, it craved to be touched, but of course, he couldn’t. As she worked up a sweat throughout the day, little particles of sweat began to seductively form. He tried to avoid her, but it seemed impossible, when he had a moment to spare or was day-dreaming, his eyes just wandered down to her body on their own accord.

  Whilst it was going extremely well (or terrible, depending on the way he looked at it) visually, conversationally, there was much to be desired. As she took a different bus from all the others, she inadvertently turned up ten minutes earlier than the other three workers. As she was the first one there, he said a gruff hello to which she responded. Then, they proceeded to spend the next ten minutes in silence, looking out to the hills and waiting patiently and slightly desperately for the others to arrive. He didn’t want to talk to her, didn’t want to become her friend or get to know her in case he liked what he found. He tried to keep the mantra she’s a criminal repeatedly flowing throughout his head in order to kill any thoughts and desires he had about her.

  And neither did it seem that she wanted to speak to him. Perhaps it was his harsh treatment of her on the first day, perhaps it was his strong and unrelenting work ethic which irritated her, maybe she just hated everyone, he didn’t know. But she certainly never spoke to him and neither did she speak to the others. Every so often, Star or Steve might ask her a question, but most of the day she remained silent, lost in her own thoughts as she dug the wintery earth. Whilst this should be perfect for him as he couldn’t really hear her voice and get to know her, it just made him more perplexed and also desperate to know about her. What was she like? What did she think about? And a question he just could not escape: why was she here?

  And even if she did speak to him, ask him questions, he was not sure what to say. Every time she looked at him, he received a little flutter in his chest, he was worried that if they had a proper conversation he would be unable to respond.... what was wrong with him?

  “Okay, it is lunchtime! After lunch, Gerry and Bryony, you are working on the red area over there and Star and Steve, you are working on the ‘G’ for Glasgow section, you have an hour!”

  And so they all wandered off to Tescos, leaving Bryony by herself on the roundabout with her pink lunchbox, triangle sandwiches and her phone.

  “So, she’s gorgeous, isn’t she?” Steve had caught up with him on the way back from Tescos and didn’t seem worried about having to walk on the side of the dual carriageway.

  “Who?”

  “Who? Who? Bryony of course!”

  “I suppose so”.

  “Ha, you’ve been looking at her Hamish, I have seen you!”

  “mmhmm”

  “Anyway, so I was thinking of asking her out for a drink, you know, see what she says?” At the sound of these words, jealousy immediately boiled up through Hamish’s veins, screaming at him to either hit Steve or at least put him off.

  “Really?” It took every sinew for him to respond in a normal and controlled voice.

  “Yeh, so what do you think? Should I go for it?” Hamish suddenly felt hot and irritated.

  “You don’t need to ask my permission Steve.”

  “I’m not asking your permission I want to know if you think it is a good idea?” Say no, say no, say no! His body screamed! But he could hardly tell Steve not to do it,

  “Yeh, sure, go for it”

  It was this which kept Hamish’s mind going all afternoon: when will he ask her and will she say yes? He felt worried, was he just going to pass this opportunity by to ask her first? Of course he was, he had to! She was a criminal and it would never work between them. Looking over at her digging with Gerry that afternoon, he was angry she was so unaware at the power she had over him. She probably assumed he didn’t like her. And now that Steve was asking her out: what happens if she said yes? ok! Maybe that would be it, she would never be single again!

  That afternoon, her and Gerry spoke (Gerry could get anyone to speak) and he tried to overhear about her life. He had taken every opportunity that he could to hear what she was saying to Gerry, but it was difficult to catch what they were saying to each other. He had tried to come as close to them as he possibly could, just so he could catch words here and there, but it had all been rather disappointing. Snippets here and there were all that he could pick up on, he heard the word Pony, neighbours and fluffy, but that is all he could pick up on. Frustrating that he could not hear more. It sounded like she owned a horse, but he still hadn’t established what she did for a living, who she was and, more importantly for Hamish, what was she doing here?

  He and Phil had spoken long into the evening and Phil had suggested that Hamish should get to know her a bit, should try and find out about her: maybe the crime wasn’t so bad? But his experience of Melissa had been so bad in the past. It wasn’t even really the problem with the criminal conviction, it was the type of person which is drawn to committing crimes. Hamish considered them to be people who were happy to flout the law and rules for their own gain whilst others suffered and toiled sticking to the law. As a result, Hamish considered them to be people who were more likely to lie to him. This certainly had been a problem in the past and his head told him just to ignore Bryony and try and get on with the work for the next two weeks.

  Hamish looked down at his own digging. He knew deep down that Phil was right. He should try to overcome the circumstances in which he met
her and just chat to her. It was just so difficult because of the mental block which he had on criminals. After his last experience....

  And of course, if Steve got there first, Hamish would be seriously annoyed and gutted at himself. Nevermind that Steve wasn’t good enough for someone like Bryony (although he definitely wasn’t), if he missed his opportunity, Hamish would feel annoyed at himself.

  But how to go about it? He had to do it carefully, without losing his angry act. He did not want to compromise his work for Bryony but there was just something about her that was so ... kissable. That was it, he just wanted to desperately march over there, take her hand, pull her up to his level and just, well, kiss her there and then. With all his might, that’s what he wanted to do.

  But from a level-headed place he conceded that was not going to work, he was just going to have to ask her out on a date or something. It was, unfortunately, not caveman times now, when it was perfectly acceptable for men to roam across large sections of terrain for the sole purpose of finding and making love to a woman. In those days, Hamish imagined, men didn’t need to speak, didn’t need to discuss, they just strode across and kissed the woman before getting down to it. In his dreams, this is exactly how he saw himself and Bryony: passionate embracing that allowed him to start taking clothes off her beautiful body.