Born of Woman (53 page)

Jennifer shivered in the gloom, wished she had brought her gloves. It was colder now, though the rain was still holding off, some of the cloud dispersing. The moon had slipped its blindfold and looked as plump and solid as a de-rinded Edam. Even so, its light was grudging. She was glad of the near-by street-lamps casting their soft glow on guard-straight leeks and glistening cabbage leaves. It was consoling, almost touching; to see the care lavished on these plots by humble men and women who toiled here every weekend, creating their tiny Hernhopes out of a hundred and twenty-five square metres and a compost-heap. She groped along to plots eleven and fourteen, the two which had been theirs. They were further down towards the fence, past a stretch of weeds and wasteland. She prayed they, too, would not be overgrown. There was tangle enough at Hernhope, without every place they touched turning into a wilderness.

She stopped by plot eleven, felt ridiculous relief. It was as neat, as ordered as the day that they had left, though everything was taller and more lush now. Humble vegetables looked exotic in the moonlight—silvered spinach, spangled cabbages. She walked up and down between them, bending low so that she could see exactly what was there. The new owner appeared to have kept the plot much as they had planted it—runner-beans towering at the back, lettuce under polythene coddled at the front, cabbage, onions, spinach, sprouts and cauliflower neat-rowed in the centre. Yet, despite the neatness, the lack of weeds and obvious signs of labour, nothing had been harvested. She peered a little closer. The marrows were as large as kit-bags, the runners huge, tough, hard-seeded, curved like scimitars, way past the size for normal picking. All the onion-tops had been neatly folded over, but the onions themselves were bursting out of the soil, as if begging to be lifted. She remembered planting them herself from seed on Boxing Day, cossetting them in seed-trays in the dark, till she could transfer them to the soil in April. It was Hester who had insisted on Boxing Day. She had written in her notebooks that onions received a special blessing and bonus if planted at dawn on the day after Christmas. So she had got up specially early, called down Hester's benediction, and sat in the chilly Cobham kitchen beneath the paper chains, pressing in the tiny blackish seeds. Lyn had come down later and kissed her across the splitting bags of compost, and when all the seeds were carefully tucked to rest, they went back to bed themselves, but not to sleep.

She stared at the onions now. She had chosen Ailsa Craig—a hardy Scottish strain, which Hester had recommended as being proof not only against infection, but against the harsh Northumbrian climate. It appeared to have done just as well in Cobham. But why had nobody lifted the onions, cleared the soil? True there had been no frost yet, but it was already late October and everything would rot or spoil if it were left in the ground much longer.

Yet the new owner was no laggard. He had recently planted a double row of spring cabbage, and lettuce under glass. His winter peas were marked by a line of cloches, a row of little tags. She peered at the name on the labels—Feltham First—a variety they had often chosen themselves. But why did he want more vegetables when he had let these older ones lie wasteful and ungathered? His carrots were quite young still. Jennifer bent closer. Between every third row of carrots was a little clump of sage, its dusty-coloured cushions pale between the feathery carrot tops. Only Lyn plated sage among his carrots to keep carrot fly away. It was a trick they had learned from Hester, an old wives' tale which worked, but which modern gardeners scorned.

The new owner must have copied their idea, replanted both varieties exactly the same way. She smiled at his naiveté. There were no carrot fly till spring, so the sage was quite superfluous for this later, autumn crop. All the same, she felt absurdly pleased. It provided some tiny continuity in a world where everything else had been destroyed or bulldozed, proved almost a tribute to her and Lyn and Hester and their methods. Some keen allotment holder must have been admiring their plot before they had even left it, then rushed to take it over, and kept it religiously the same. It was almost as if he had saved the harvest for them, tended and weeded their vegetables, but refused to pick or eat them because he was not the one who had sown them in the first place. A crazy thought, but an appealing one. Some part of her and Lyn, their life and work together, still stood like a tiny monument.

She stamped her feet to try and warm them up, blew on her fingers. The silence was less total now. She could hear drippings and ploppings from the trees, the faint screech of a vixen in a distant copse, the soughing of the wind. She glanced around her. Nothing but ghostly rows of vegetables, glistening clumps of nettles. She moved to plot fourteen, the one they had used exclusively for herbs—comfrey and white horehound, feverfew and vervain—names which were almost poetry, herbs which could salve or season, heal or beautify. She stepped on to the soil. This second plot was further from the street-lamps, more closely veiled in darkness. Yet she could just make out the herbs—the more common everyday ones sought out from fields and hedgerows; others, more exotic, purchased with the money which Matthew had first given them for handing over the diaries. That was more than sixteen months ago, just after her miscarriage. She had buried all her grief and disappointment in the soil—coddled her nursling plants like substitute children, feeding them and watering them until they grew tall and strong.

But wait—some of the plants were
tiny
—babies still, only newly sown. And the plot was
full
, whereas she and Lyn had left it half denuded. They had dug up most of the herbs before they moved to Putney, loath to leave them there for a new allotment holder to fling on the rubbish-tip as weeds. She had stripped off all the leaves and flowers and used them for herbal extracts, then replanted the perennials in Matthew's garden. So what were they doing here again, some of them cuttings from his older stock, others newly purchased, the taller ones staked and supported, all meticulously weeded? Even the layout was the same. She had planted the original garden herself, following Hester's plan, and here it was in replica, exactly as before, the bushy cushions of chamomile making an edging in the front, the tall spikes of marshmallow protected by a burdock bush behind.

She threaded her way through the plants, crushing leaves and sniffing them, picking fruits and berries. Yes—there was the figwort in the centre, the hyssop next to it, the musky scent of southenwood, sharper after rain—all the herbs that Hester recommended, in the order she approved. It was strange, uncanny, as if Hester herself had risen from her grave and re-sown this stretch of ground, re-created Hernhope down at Cobham.

No—not Hester—
Lyn
. It was Lyn who must have been here and revived their two allotments, laid out her herb garden exactly as she had done it in the first place, filled in the missing gaps. No one but Lyn would have planted aconite or rue, or known where to purchase skullcap and valerian. Ordinary gardeners stuck to mint and chives, rosemary or thyme. Only Hester's son would have tracked down feverfew or lovage, transplanted them successfully, searched the hedgerows for wood sage and wormwood. Only he would have remembered the exact spacing and siting of all the different varieties, alternating savory with mugwort as Hester recommended, shading peppermint with witch hazel. No new owner, however faithful or admiring, could have recreated a garden which was so distinctly hers and Hester's own.

She turned back to the other plot. Now she could see Lyn's touches everywhere—marigolds sown among the tomato plants to keep the whitefly off; the way he had used the tough outer leaves of his cauliflowers to blanket and swaddle the frail white heads inside: even his home-made cloches constructed on the cheap out of polythene and old wire coat-hangers. He must have returned to Cobham to rescue these two plots—officially re-rent them—but when and why? Their tenancy had been due to expire in early September, but long before September they would have been overgrown and jungled. Had he been creeping back, even in the summer, to do a little secret gardening? But why had he never mentioned it? And why should he sow more vegetables when he had left all the rest ungathered? There were enough on this plot to feed a tribe, and Lyn was on his own—no wife to peel and prepare them, no family to share them, not even a house or larder to store them in.

No, Lyn had come here for an entirely different reason. It was hard to put it into words. It sounded foolish, even crackpot, yet she understood instinctively. This was his gift to her, his offering—this patient dogged labour, this restoring of their plots. He had re-created their life and work together to prove that it was precious to him, a secret homage to their former way of life, a tribute to their marriage—almost a replacement for their child. He had sown her in vegetables, blazoned her in herbs, written her a message in the soil, telling her he missed her, begging her to come and pluck his harvest before it went to waste. She had arrived only just in time. Another few weeks or even days, and this bounty would be blighted.

She crouched down on the path, grubbed up the smallest of the lettuces, plucked out its heart and ate it leaf by leaf; tugged out a carrot, scraped it clean with her fingernails, cradled it in her hands before biting into it. She picked a tomato, squashed pulp and seeds against her tongue, swallowed … savoured … found a last late strawberry, spun it out in slow sensual bites. She snapped off a runner-bean, split it with her thumbnail, squeezed out the fat mauve seeds inside, gulped them whole. She must devour his harvest, consume and relish all that he had planted for her, so that she could be one with him and joined to him, swallowing the fruits his hands and breath had touched. She picked a leaf of marigold, already brown and dying; crushed sage between her fingers, sniffed its fragrance. Even humble sage and scraggy marigold were precious. He had sown them between his vegetables as ritual and homage, because she and Hester had done it that way. It revived the old traditions, kept their past unchanged.

She was on her knees now in the centre of the plot. Her hands were stained and muddy, her body tense with cold. Yet she was aware of Hester's presence all around her—in the vast and sequinned night, the gauzy leaves of potent herbs marbled in the moonlight, the raw smell of wet earth. It was Hester who had drawn her here, shown her Lyn's devotion. This was his scrap of country, his substitute for Hernhope, her proof that he belonged with soil and nature. He would never feel at peace in a city or an office. They were both of them refugees, both cut off from their roots.

It was Susie who had trapped her, upset all her values. She couldn't blame the girl—would never break with her—but she must look after her in some less intensive way. Now Sparrow had shown up again, perhaps he could share the room with her, or find another place—and there was always Jo to keep an eye on things. She herself would visit, be present at the birth. She wouldn't break that promise, but in the three long months before it, she must return to Hernhope before it reverted back to wasteland, or their marriage choked in weeds.

She eased up from the ground. The rain had started again—drenching down on her like a slap, a reprimand, punishing her for those selfish, sterile weeks, for allowing Susie to distort her views, so that she had judged her husband unfairly by the standards of cruder and more conventional men. She blundered along the path, blinded by the rain, shoes sinking into the mud. She must shelter before she was completely soaked. She slipped through the allotment gate, followed the track which skirted it. Fifty yards along was a dilapidated barn, abandoned by the farmer who owned the land beyond. She groped towards it, tearing her clothes on brambles, tripping on loose stones.

She stopped at the door, glanced nervously around her. The clouds were hurtling overhead, as if frightened themselves and stampeding away in panic. The drone of the rain mixed with the stealthy tinkle of a dozen homemade bird-scarers, whispering to her over the allotment fence. A white shape in the field beyond changed from spectre to old horse, startling her with its sudden drum of hoof-beats.

Stupid to be scared. Cobham was a law-abiding place, with one of the lowest crime rates in the country. She pushed at the heavy door, heaving her shoulder against it, took a cautious step inside. She could see almost nothing but shadow piled on shadow. She crept between the shadows, groping out her hands in the spidery blackness, trying to find a box or bench or bale of hay where she could sit and rest, remove her sodden shoes. Her foot encountered something heavy lying on the ground. She felt it stir, leapt back in terror. Another body was looming up in front of her, a shadow with real hands.

‘No, get off! Get
off
. Don't touch me.'

Screams were scalding from her throat, lending power to her stupid shaking legs. She turned and fled, tripped on a piece of lumber, sprawled her full length on the floor. She was sobbing now with pain and shock. The shadow had solidified to a threatening presence creeping up behind her. She could hear its breathing, smell its sweat. She closed her eyes. No point in screaming any longer. It was all over. She waited for the cosh, the knife.

‘J … Jennifer?'

She jumped, looked up. Her name was as much of a shock as the startle of light now blinding her eyes. She ducked away from the beam, stared at the thin, paint-stained hand holding the flash-lamp. She knew that hand, knew the voice which had spoken her name. She rubbed her eyes. She must be imagining things again, like her fleeting vision of Hester on the site of the old hostel. Except this time, the details were much clearer: the bony wrist, the long tapering fingers—artistic fingers—the broken nails. Her eyes moved from fingers to face, a face which looked older and more haggard than when she had last seen it. She took in the three days' stubble, the dark circles beneath the eyes—eyes which were neither black nor blue nor grey nor …