Ivy Lane: Spring: (6 page)

‘Onions. Now, don’t look like that,’ said Charlie, pointing a finger at my bottom lip. ‘They look after themselves and you’ll need all the help you can get. Anyway, I’m sure you can find some fancy variety if you try. You probably only want one more crop for now. It’s too early for all your courgettes and whatnot.’

‘But not asparagus?’ I said sadly.

I’d really had my heart set on that. We had been in Spain once and spotted an old man walking down a country lane carrying a handful of it. James had leapt over the hedge, dragging me with him, and eventually found it growing wild at the side of a river. We’d taken some back to our apartment and fed each other stalks of it dripping with butter. It was probably the most romantic food I had ever tasted.

‘It’s not a beginner’s crop,’ said Charlie gently. ‘Perhaps you could work up to it.’

‘Fair dos,’ I sighed, scraping up the last of my buttery potato. ‘Shall we have pudding?’

‘It’s done me the world of good, talking to you today. The lads are great, but we don’t really discuss things. Sometimes only a woman’s company will do,’ said Charlie as he walked me back to his car a few minutes later.

There had been a small tussle over the bill, with him trying to pay for it and me insisting that we go Dutch.

I won. Thankfully.

‘Glad to help.’ Charlie unlocked the passenger door but I shook my head. ‘I’ll walk home, if you don’t mind.’

I rarely travelled by car if I could help it and the journey here was more than enough for one day.

He nodded thoughtfully and rested a hand casually on my arm. I held my breath.

Uh oh. Please don’t blow it. Don’t ruin a lovely lunch.

‘Tilly, I’m not looking for anyone right now,’ he said, his eyes flicking up to look at me and darting away again. ‘But I do need a friend. Can we be friends?’

I took a step to the side to dislodge his hand as subtly as possible.

‘Suits me.’

We smiled at each other and I walked away. He tooted his horn as he drove past and I waved. I must admit, contrary madam that I was, I was a teeny bit insulted. But overall, I decided, it was music to my ears. He was a fireman. He saved lives. And if he was happy for our friendship to be platonic, then I was happy to have him around. I just hoped he didn’t change his mind.

It was a Saturday morning and the world and his wife – or, to be more politically correct, partner – were toiling away at Ivy Lane. I was biding my time, waiting for an exciting delivery; my brand-new shed with two windows, a stable door and a pitched roof was due any moment. I didn’t yet have anything to plant but I had done the weekly ‘hoe down’ as I liked to call it across my little patch to rein in the galloping weeds and I was now busy repainting the wrought-iron bench in Heritage Cream. This bench would be where I sat in summer, under the shade of my stumpy tree, now identified by Peter as an apple tree.

Gemma, I suspected, was in her shed. I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her but I’d heard music as well as odd grunts and ripping noises. She was probably giving herself a facial or something equally unhorticultural. I hadn’t disturbed her because last weekend when I’d been removing the flaking paint from the bench with a wire brush, she had distracted me with tales about When Botox Goes Wrong and I’d ended up with a huge shard of rusty old paint under my thumb nail.

As luck would have it, Karen, the woman who shared the plot next door with ‘camel-lips’ Shazza, was a nurse and had cleaned it up and stuck a plaster on it for me. I’d got a bit confused regarding who was with who, but it turned out Peter, our other plot neighbour, had nothing to do with Shazza. He was married and apparently his wife didn’t like gardening but did like cooking his exotic vegetables. I had been very glad to tie up that loose end.

Of course, the thumb had to go septic and I’d had a devil of a job ringing the bell on my bike with a huge bandage on my thumb all week.

My birthday in the middle of the week had been perfect despite my injury: a non-event that passed completely without incident. Unless you counted the argument with my mother. That had been a bit of a low point.

Mum had telephoned to wish me a happy birthday and offered to come down on the train from the genteel spa town of Harrogate, where she lived, and meet me at Selfridges for lunch followed by shopping to buy me a present. She wasn’t at all surprised when I declined – I’d pretty much refused any sort of social outing for the last eighteen months – but she was taken aback when I asked for a shed for the allotment for my birthday.

‘Darling, that’s wonderful! So glad the allotment is working its magic and you are getting over that awful business with James. It’s time, darling, it really is.’

Oh, was it
really
? My allocation of misery had been used up, had it? Grief-o-meter pointed to ‘Get over it’, did it? Sympathy, apparently, was now officially withdrawn.

I’d cried and ranted and said some awful un-Harrogate-like things and slammed the phone down.

It was all right for her, I’d railed to myself, or possibly out loud, as I stomped round the house moving items pointlessly from place to place. She and Dad had had more than thirty blissful years together, I’d muttered, rearranging my jumper drawer in an attempt to get my emotions back under control.

I rang her back, of course, and apologized with a promise to visit before Easter.

That was the latest I could go; after that I would be busy planting. The thought made my shoulders wiggle with delight.

I couldn’t wait.

I had spent an entertaining hour earlier this morning with Alfred (the man who looked after his tools), Peter the committee chairman and Dougie, with a cup of tea and a seed catalogue in the pavilion. It had been impossible not to share their enthusiasm for growing things and we had settled on sweetcorn, broad beans, shallots and a miniature variety of carrots for my first crops. Peter had suggested sowing seeds for green manure in the bit I wasn’t going to be using for now. You simply sowed seeds and hoed them into the ground once they had sprouted, no green animal poo involved at all, I had been relieved to learn.

I was only halfway along the bench seat with my paintbrush when I heard the rumble and hiss of a lorry on the road.

‘Delivery for Parker?’ yelled the driver through his open cab window. A second man, chewing gum, stared gormlessly at me from the passenger seat.

I waved, replaced the lid on my paint tin and hurried over to where the driver was holding out a clipboard and pen for my signature. The assistant was already at the back of the lorry.

‘Where do you want it?’ shouted Gormless.

I joined him at the rear of the flatbed. I’d cleared the slabs in readiness; it would simply be a matter of lifting it into place.

‘At the end, next to the . . . Oh!’

Drat, they’d messed up the delivery. There was only a pile of wood in the back. What a let-down.

‘I think there’s been a mistake,’ I said, ‘I ordered a shed.’

‘’Tis a shed. Comes flat-packed,’ said the driver.

‘Very clear on the website,’ said his mate.

Buggeration. I watched them struggle with the huge timber panels towards my end of plot sixteen, dreams of sitting in my shed by lunchtime fluttering away like blossom on the breeze.

I stared mournfully at the departing truck, my brain scrabbling to form a new plan, when Shazza emerged, like a mirage from the cloud of dust kicked up by the truck’s tyres, thundering in my direction. She had a drill in one hand, a lump hammer in the other.

I was a bit scared of Shazza.

She came to a halt in front of me, raised the drill above her head and pulled the trigger.

‘Fancy learning how to use one of these?’ she said with a beaming smile.

Fear clutched at my heart, but the impact of her words was immediately dissipated as Gemma’s shed door opened and a young man of about twenty in a navy cagoule backed out of the shed looking very pleased with himself. He cupped his balls –
his balls!
– and I distinctly heard him say, ‘These will be sore for the rest of the day.’

Fear clutched at my heart, but the impact of her words was immediately dissipated as Gemma’s shed door opened and a young man of about twenty in a navy cagoule backed out of the shed looking very pleased with himself. He cupped his balls –
his balls!
– and I distinctly heard him say, ‘These will be sore for the rest of the day.’

I watched the young lothario as he hobbled, bandy-legged, down the road and stopped at the plot next to Charlie’s.

I recognized him now: he shared a plot with an older woman. A mother-and-son combo I’d assumed, but maybe not. Maybe he was a cub to her cougar. Whatever rings your bell.

Gemma had appeared and was daintily pulling up leeks and arranging them in a wicker basket. She looked over and waved.

‘New shed? Lovely!’ she called.

I smiled but I couldn’t think of a word to say. I turned my back on her to hide my confusion and tuned into Shazza’s monologue about suffragettes and battery-operated power tools.

An hour later, the shed floor was in position and all the panels were laid out in situ. Shazza was still cracking on, and I was dying for a drink but didn’t dare say anything.

‘Right,’ she said, revving up her drill again, ‘let’s get the rear panel up first. Ever used one of these?’

No, funnily enough. My DIY experience began and ended with assembling an Ikea bookcase with an Allen key. No batteries required.

I shook my head; my mouth was too dry to speak. Partly nerves, partly tea-deficiency.

She placed the drill in my hands. ‘We’ll have a dry run,’ she said, picking up a spare bit of wood and a screw.

‘Now, all you do is . . .’ She wrapped her arms round me from behind and covered my hands with hers. I heard what could have been a cough, or more likely a snort of enjoyment from Gemma, and squeezed my eyes shut. How had I ended up in this position?

‘And then squeeze the trigger, gently at first . . .’

‘SHAZZA!’

Shazza leapt away from me as if she’d be burned. I let out a sigh of relief and we both turned to see Karen on the path behind us, a mug in each hand. Two pink spots coloured the nurse’s cheeks and she looked like she was about to cry.

‘I’ve brought you both a drink, but I can see you’re otherwise engaged,’ Karen said in a wavering, high-pitched voice.

‘I was only helping the lass out, love. No need to upset yourself.’ Shazza was at Karen’s side in an instant, stroking her hair.

Realisation dawned; I’d assumed they were friends or sisters. Not . . . more.

I looked over to Gemma for assistance and caught her eye. No help from that quarter, she was wetting herself laughing.

I strode over and gave her my teacher stare and got straight to the point. ‘What’s the deal with the shed shenanigans?’

Her face went pale, as well it might.

‘Who told you?’ she muttered.

I rolled my eyes. ‘It was pretty obvious, you weren’t exactly discrete about it.’

‘Oh.’ She seemed disappointed at that. ‘Well, if I’d known you were coming, I wouldn’t have done it.’

I groaned at her. Unbelievable. ‘This is not about me, Gemma, what about Mike?’

‘He was in on it. In fact, the whole family was in on it at one stage.’

Wait, what?

‘Anyway, I’d earned it.’ She jammed her hands on her hips and stared right at me, her blue eyes a picture of defiance. Her hair was held back with a thin pink Alice band today. She looked about twelve. ‘After all that man put me through.’

‘Who, Mike?’

‘No, that awful Frank Garton.’

‘Gemma, you’ve lost me completely.’

‘Dumping stuff on my allotment. Always having dodgy meetings in the shed. We had the police round here every week before he was arrested.’

‘So when he got kicked off the site, Mike, me, Mum and Dad nicked his shed. Your shed.’ She chewed on her lip and looked at me from under a furrowed brow.

A few moments of silence went by as realization slowly dawned.

‘I wasn’t talking about that! I meant that boy, last seen holding his privates, leaving your shed.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Tilly!’ Her face broke into a wide smile. ‘Why didn’t you say?’ She grabbed my arm and dragged me into her shed. There was a beach towel on the floor and I tried not to put my muddy boots on it.

‘You swear you won’t tell anyone?’

Like I had anyone to tell. ‘Swear.’

She leaned towards me with a cheeky grin. ‘That was Colin. He has a plot over the other side with his mum.’

I nodded, not sure where she was heading with this.

‘He’s a male glamour model. But his mum doesn’t know.’

I opened my mouth to say that he didn’t look like one, but frankly, what did I know? And I still didn’t like the sound of where this was going.

‘In return for services rendered, he does most of my digging and planting. Don’t tell my mum.’ She wagged a finger at me. ‘See?’ She held up a carrier bag and showed me its contents: several used wax strips covered in short and curlies. ‘Back, sack and crack.’

I covered my gaping mouth with my hand. The mere thought brought tears to my eyes.

‘Mum wanted me to have an allotment and don’t get me wrong, I do love all the fresh veg and stuff and it is good to show Mia where food comes from and all that jazz. But when it comes down to it, I can’t be arsed. Plus the fact no one wants a beautician to have skanky nails.’

She looked at me solemnly, waiting for my reaction. I laughed and I laughed and she joined in and I can honestly say it was my happiest moment for months. Finally we wiped the tears away from our eyes and I gave her a hug. She smelt of flowers and coconut oil.

‘You’re brilliant, Gemma,’ I said.

‘You don’t mind about the shed?’

I shook my head. ‘No, my new one is much nicer. No offence.’

She shrugged good-naturedly. ‘None taken.’

Through the shed window I caught a glimpse of Shazza and Karen, poring over the instruction leaflet for the shed. With any luck, they’d do it for me if I stayed out of the way for a long enough.

‘Hey, Gem?’ I said, settling into her spare deckchair. ‘Will you do me a manicure?’