Sowing The Seeds Of Love Part 3

'Have you had plans drawn up?'

'Um. No. Not yet. I was waiting to see if I could generate enough interest first.'

'Do you have photos?'

'No.'

'How big is it?'

'About an acre.'

'An acre in this part of the city! It's a wonder no one's built an apartment block on top of it.'

'Yes. The owner was thinking about selling it to a developer, but she seems to have had a change of heart.'

'What do you envisage for it?' Again, Uri asked the question. Emily had yet to speak.

'I see it as a community garden. Anyone who's interested can come and help. Try to restore it to its former glory. Flowers, vegetables, herbs, fruit trees.'

'We could grow figs vines, even.' Uri was smiling broadly now.

'I suppose we might be able to get a greenhouse.'

He was looking at her carefully now, choosing his words. 'Well, as you know, the temperature in a walled garden is always several degrees higher than that of a normal garden so it should be possible to grow such fruit against the walls, where the heat is retained.'

Aoife nodded and looked at the carpet. She could feel herself blushing to her roots.

As you know.

She met Uri's eye briefly. He was still looking at her and she could have kicked herself for not having done more research. She of all people.

'Can we see it?' It was the first time Emily had spoken.

'The garden?'

'Yes.'

'Now?' She hadn't antic.i.p.ated this.

Emily nodded.

'But it's dark.'

'I have a torch,' said Uri.

You would, thought Aoife, somewhat bitterly. Then she checked herself. She was d.a.m.n lucky they had someone who knew what he was talking about. Because she clearly didn't.

'What if someone else shows up...?' Her voice trailed off. Her two visitors glanced at the clock, then back at her. Nine o'clock. There was no need for them to say anything.

'What about Liam?'

'I can come too, Mummy.' Liam's words were moist against her throat.

Why not? she thought. He was wide awake anyway. 'Okay.'

'Yippee!' Liam climbed off her lap and ran out to the hall, presumably to get his boots.

She remembered something. 'But I don't have the key yet.'

'Can we ask the owner?' said Uri.

'I suppose we could. But I wouldn't like to disturb her. It's a bit late.'

'Of course. You're right. But is there a way to see in at all?'

'There's a gate we can look through.'

'Well, then.' He got up.

And they all put their coats on and went outside.

It felt weird, walking along with the two strangers, close in the darkness, Liam's hand clinging to hers. They crunched along the pavement, their breath solid and white in the winter air. They were silent mostly, Liam's intermittent questions easing the tension.

When they were almost there, Uri drew alongside her. 'Are you a gardener?' he asked.

The question she'd been dreading. 'No. I'm a lecturer.'

'In horticulture?'

'No. English.' She looked at him. His eyes were on the ground. 'Are you?'

'A gardener?'

'Yes.'

'No. Just a keen amateur. I'm a tailor by trade.'

'Oh.'

That would explain his immaculate appearance. Could he tell she'd bought her clothes ready made and off the peg in Dunnes Stores?

'Here we are.'

'Oh, I know this place,' said Emily.

They arrived at the gate and peered into the darkness. The nearest streetlight was quite a distance away. Then Uri switched on his torch and shone the powerful beam. They all pressed their faces up against the gate and followed the arc of light as it illuminated various parts of the garden. She watched them. They were suitably spellbound. Good.

'Can I have a go?'

Uri handed the torch to Liam, who swung the beam erratically around the whole neighbourhood.

'Well,' said Aoife, 'what do you think?'

'I'm in,' said Uri.

'Me too,' said Emily.

Good.

Good.

7.

It was really happening. She was really going to do this, she and her army of two volunteers. Thus she found herself, for the third time, on Mrs Prendergast's doorstep, one drizzly morning in December. Her fingers had barely made contact with the bra.s.s knocker before the door opened.

'I was wondering when you'd turn up again.'

Charming.

'Good morning, Mrs Prendergast. I've come to let you know that I've decided to take you up on your offer. We'll be starting work on the garden directly after Christmas.'

'We?'

'Me and the other volunteers.'

'Will there be many?'

'Only a few at first.'

'All right, then.' She started to close the door.

'Mrs Prendergast?'

'What?'

'I'm going to need a key.'

She nodded and disappeared. Aoife could hear a drawer being opened and some rummaging. Mrs Prendergast returned with a ma.s.sive, rusty object. 'Here we are. I dug it up in case you came back. It's for the padlock on the gate. I don't even know if it works any more.'

She handed it to Aoife, gave her a strange look, as if she couldn't work her out, then shut the door.

As Aoife went down the steps she could feel the joy soaring into her throat. She felt like singing. Bouncing along the pavement, she rounded the corner and headed for the gate. The key fitted. But that was as far as it went. She wriggled, she pushed, she twisted and she turned. Nothing. She cursed her weak, feminine hands. Michael could have opened it.

Angry with herself for the thought, she tried again, more forcefully this time, making grunts worthy of a Wimbledon champion. She was on the verge of giving up when she felt something give. A subtle twisting into place. She felt a kind of elation as the padlock came undone and fell into her palm. She unwrapped the chain once, twice, three times. The gate emitted a creak worthy of a Hammer horror film. How long since it was last opened? She stepped quickly inside and secured it.

How quiet. How eerie. How suddenly cut off she felt from the outside world. The traffic whizzing past. The pedestrians rushing by. Here, all was still. Timeless. Untouched for nigh on forty years. She walked silently to the centre, feeling as if she'd suddenly become invisible. She bent and touched the duckweed on the pond. It separated to reveal dank, dark-green water beneath. You couldn't see the bottom. It was probably only a foot deep but to Aoife, in that moment, it could have gone on for ever. The ground was soft with rainfall and the air was still. The garden seemed to be breathing all around her, the plants silently growing.

She sank to her knees and started to cry.

Myrtle bowed her head and locked the gate. That was it for her. She would store the key somewhere obscure. She took one last look at the garden through the bars. But was she looking out or in? All she knew was that she wasn't going back.

8.

Christmas was over, the less said about it the better. It was time to make a new start. Onwards and upwards in the garden.

Aoife had asked all her family for garden implements as presents, ignoring their comments and strange looks, which would have been decidedly more so had they known that she herself had only a yard with a few scattered pots. She had received a spade, a big fork, a trowel, a little fork, a thing for pruning low branches and another thing for lopping high branches. She'd been swotting too, having realized that an in-depth knowledge of the legend of Cupid and Psyche wasn't going to get her far in a real walled garden. Not that she had a hope of fooling Uri. She had a feeling she'd already been rumbled there.

That first morning they were both waiting for her at the gate. She saw them before they saw her. Uri had his hands dug deep inside his overcoat and his face pressed up against the wrought iron. It must have been freezing. Emily was staring into the middle distance, in what Aoife was beginning to think of as her habitual pose.

'Sorry I'm late. Liam wouldn't let me leave the creche. He must have known something was up.' She reached them, breathless and pink-cheeked. The cold air was making her nose run and she wiped it surrept.i.tiously with a ragged piece of toilet tissue. Uri smiled at her broadly and Emily gave her a little nod. She noticed they had tools with them too. All the better for digging.

She struggled a little less with the gate this time and they went into the garden. Emily walked a few paces and looked all around. Uri took himself off to explore the furthest reaches, bending and prodding and muttering to himself. Aoife gave them a few minutes to familiarize themselves, letting them wander back to her in their own time. Uri seemed excited, Emily expectant.

'Where do you want us to start?'

This was a critical moment for Aoife. Uri clearly knew far more about gardening than she did yet he was deferring to her. She wasn't sure how she would have handled it if he had tried to take over. She might have been half inclined to let him. But he hadn't. So...

'Well. The place is a bit of a mess, so the first thing that has to be done, I think, is to clear it.'

'I agree,' said Uri, nodding and smiling as if she'd said something really intelligent rather than blindingly obvious. 'Of course, it would have been better if we could have started the clearing in the autumn but not to worry.'

'Of course,' said Aoife, experiencing a surge of excitement. She'd learned that from the swotting. 'Now, we may find some plants that are salvageable, so be careful what you pull out.' She directed this comment at Emily who, for all she knew, was as clueless as herself. 'So,' she said, 'let's get gardening.'

Aoife, Emily and Uri spent three successive days pulling, yanking, chopping and hacking in the walled garden. On the second day there was light snow. Uri brought along a yard brush and beat it from the upper branches of the evergreens.

'But it looks so pretty up there,' said Aoife.

'It might damage the trees if we leave it.'

'Oh.'

'I've been thinking,' he said. 'We might be eligible for a grant.'

'Really?'

'If we billed it as a community project. It might help with the planting costs. Would you like me to look into it?'