Liverpool Revisited

by Michael White

  “Do we need a trolley?” she asked, pointing to the large steel trolleys that had more of a resemblance to a row of low loaders than shopping trolleys.

  “Nah.” he said. “We’re only here for a few plastic planters. We’ll be okay.” There was no way he was dragging one of those things around the garden centre. As they entered the door Billy’s thoughts darkened. This garden centre was pretty much the same as every other one he had ever been in. Of course there were the usual miles and miles of everything the budding gardener may possibly require, from fruit nets to mousetraps. Spades to charcoal burners. On and on it went. More chemicals than Levers.

  The design was pretty standard as well, a sense of doom and gloom being in some way built into the building. There was a small coffee shop set off to one side, from where the smell of burnt something or other seemed to arise. There was also an (always) set aside section entirely for jam and pickles which almost seemed to dictate that anyone who was going to plant a rose also had a great passion for peach marmalade or the like. “How much jam can one person possibly need?” he thought as they passed. There was also a pond centre towards the back of the place, and then outside a large open air area for all the outdoor plants, the trees and supplies like compost and garden furniture. Billy thought that it was like a template for all garden centres, right down to the bloody awful car park outside it. He could never quite understand this. Every garden centre he’d ever been to seemed to be in possession of a car park that looked as if it had been recently, and comprehensively, bombed. There were pot holes everywhere, most of them usually that deep that they filled up with water when it rained. Bloody awful.

  Passing the selection of plastic stand-to greenhouses, or balloons, as Billy liked to think of them (he had bought one once until the wind caught it. He liked to tell people it was last seen heading in the direction of Norway), they passed the main checkout desk where four members of staff were stood, mostly employed in the art of looking down their collective noses at anyone that went past. Billy had long ago stopped being polite and usually left Sue to pay unless it was something heavy. He thought that perhaps the words, “You work in a bloody garden centre, get over yourself - you’re just another bleeding till girl” were likely to be uttered at some point if they continued to look down on him as they plainly were doing now.

  “I’ll go and have a look at the planters over there.” said Sue, noticing Billy glaring. “You have a look at the price of the compost outside.” and off she went. Billy spent a couple of minutes teasing the fish in the tanks as he passed the pond centre until the assistant who clearly knew more about fish than most people would consider normal came across and started glaring at him as well.

  “Got any scraps for the cat?” asked Billy as he sloped off chuckling through the back door and into the outdoor area, leaving the by now obviously confused and somewhat irritated pond keeper behind him. Passing several bins of stone and bags of gravel he made his way to where the compost was stacked up. He priced the one he wanted and as they only needed the one bag he stood for a while waiting for Sue. After a few minutes he got bored and decided to have a wander.

  Ahead of him the raised planters containing all the outdoor plants, shrubs and trees were arranged in straight lines, heading back to the front of the garden centre and the Battle of the Somme replica pot hole filled car park. To his left stood the various bits of garden furniture and pedestals, whilst the compost and soils were behind him. As it was a quite sunny day he decided to have a wander amongst the garden ornaments. These never failed to make him laugh as he usually strode past, the frankly outlandish and downright ugly things that some people bunged between their rose bushes never failing to amuse him. He wandered the aisles, glancing at them. Strange, twisted wood nymphs and gargoyles. Sundials and pedestals of ornate design. General objects like a wheelbarrow or bird tables of many different types. They were mostly made of what looked like stone or clay. As he moved onto the third row, here were the planters and corner pieces. One was designed to look like a shoe.

  There was even a bench to one side of them and noticing the price tag of nearly six hundred pounds, he decided to treat himself, and duly plonked himself down on it. It wasn’t, he was glad to discover, comfortable at all. As he sat there in the sun he took in all of these objects. They all seemed to be cast of grey stone, though that was probably some kind of concrete mix. Or clay. Stone, possibly. He nudged one of the pots that seemed to be in the shape of a squirrel with three heads with his foot and it moved easily. That one was clay, then. He sat there for a while in the sun until he saw Sue coming across the way. She didn’t seem to be carrying a plastic planter though, Billy noted dourly.

  “Trust you to be sitting down!” she said as she drew near and placed herself on the bench next to him. “The planters they have are all horrible or too big. We’ll have to look somewhere else.” Billy sighed to himself. Sue looked around them, squinting in the sun, noticing for the first time, as pretty much he had, all of the garden ornaments arrayed about them. She perked up a little, having previously been slumped onto the bench in the same way he was.

  “Some of these are quite nice though.” she said, and Billy snorted.

  “The gargoyle with the squint seems to have caught my eye.” he said, laughing. “Or at least I think it has - it’s quite difficult to tell, really.” Sue tutted at him and went off wandering around the smaller pots and planters. Billy stayed on the bench.

  “Oh look, Billy.” she said, stooping down to look closer at one of the pots that seemed to be in the shape of a bucket. “The potter has put his name inside.” Billy got up from the bench and wandered across. Sure enough, inside the bucket the potter had signed his name with some rough implement, possibly even his finger. “Henry’s bucket” it read on the inside of the bucket at the top. On the bottom of it on the inside he had also written, “Made in England”.

  “That’s quite good.” Billy was forced to concede. He could see where this was going now. “This one has Andrew’s Urn” written inside it, and this one says, Roland’s Planter.” Sue had paused now by what was evidently “Henry’s Bucket.” Billy waited patiently whilst she summed it up.

  “I think we’ll have this one.” she said eventually. “It’s quite nice and much sturdier than the plastic ones.” She nodded her head. Billy knew her mind was now made up. “It’s really nice too.” Billy sighed out loud and wondered why on Earth the heaviest stuff in the garden centre was always furthest from the tills.

  “I’ll go and get a trolley then.” he said, knowing full well he now probably needed two bags of compost and apart from that the bucket looked quite heavy too. As he made his way past the tills he had to suffer the looks of the assistants’ disappointment that he was daring to leave empty handed. Either that or they thought he had been shop lifting. On impulse Billy stopped and bought a large round lollipop from the counter and unwrapping it, was still sucking on it furiously when he reappeared once again, this time dragging a long rusty trolley with him. He waved happily as he went past.

  ***

  “It will probably look better over there by the bushes.” said Sue, and Billy rose slowly from his crouch and carried the empty pot once again over to the other side of the garden. He was just glad that he had not as of yet filled it with the compost or it would have probably been too heavy to carry around for long.

  “That’s it.” she said, smiling from the back porch. “Just right. If you fill it with the compost I’ll put the primroses in it. It’ll look lovely there.” Billy dragged the first bag of compost over to where the bucket now was and propping the bag of compost up against the bush went to get his trowel. Billy was just exiting the shed when he saw the bag of compost slowly slipping against the bush. His heart sank as it finally tipped and in doing so also knocked the bucket on to its side. The bucket came to rest with a loud clunk. Billy registered two things at the same time. One, Sue arriving back onto the porch at exactly the wrong moment, having seen everything, and two, the pot
now sitting on its side on the grass as if it was sunning itself.

  A loud tut rose from the porch as Billy shot across the patio. “Fancy resting the compost on a bush, you dozy beggar!” Sue shouted. Billy was relieved however as he approached the bucket to find that it was much hardier than he had given it credit. It was still intact, although now lying on its side.

  “It’s alright Sue.” he said, getting hold of the garden ornament to right it. “All in one piece.” Sue smiled as she heard this, but then seemed to frown once again as she stared at the bucket.

  “What’s that written on the bottom of it?” she said, suddenly curious. Billy recognised the look. This was the history detective side of her.

  “Probably says, “Other side up.”” he muttered, getting his glasses from his shirt breast pocket.

  “I heard that.” said Sue, laughing as Billy put on his glasses.

  “Actually, there’s a bit more than that.” he said, and began to read. “It looks almost like a rhyme or something like that.” Slowly he traced the words with his finger, reading them out loud as he did so. “Run I can, but cannot walk. Sometimes I sing, yet never talk. Lack arms, though have hands; no head have I, but have a face. What am I?”

  Billy stood up, righting the bucket. “What the bloody hell’s that all about?” he said, but Sue had gone quiet, lost in thought. She asked him to repeat the words once again and Billy watched as she wrote them down in the kitchen jotter as he did so. Billy knew that this was what she was like when she was working on the family trees, and decided to leave her to it. Slowly she returned indoors, and taking off his glasses he began to fill the bucket with compost. He was halfway through the second bag, and thinking that he would have a little bit left over that would probably end up under the rhododendron when Sue appeared once again, waving the note pad and smiling.

  “It’s a clock.” she said, and Billy frowned.

  “Eh?” he said, trying not to look completely confused and failing miserably.

  “A clock.” she repeated. “It’s like a riddle. A clock runs but can’t walk. It sings when it chimes, has hands, no head and a face. A clock face.”

  “Very clever.” said Billy, “but why’s it written on the bottom of a bucket? What’s wrong with “Made in China” or something like that?”

  “No idea.” she said. “But I like it. Quaint. That’s what it is. Anyway, you can come and wash your hands and start the tea. I’ll do the flowers now.”

  Billy put the trowel to one side and up ended the remaining dregs from the bag of compost into the border. It was at that point that they discovered they had forgotten to get the primroses.

  ***

  Negotiating the troughs and pits of the garden centre car park Billy and Sue parked up and made their way first indoors, past the sales assistants (Billy was tempted to buy another lollipop), and then back outdoors to the plants and ornaments section once again. Billy became quite curious however as Sue completely ignored the flowers arranged in trays and made her way back to the collection of clay and stone objects towards the back of the outdoor area.

  “What are you doing, Sue?” asked Billy who was now in hot pursuit of his wife, who was already busy nosing amongst the large array of garden ornaments.

  “I’ve been thinking.” she said. “I think I am looking for a clock.” she paused, ignoring what appeared to be two stone hedgehogs waltzing. “Or a clock face, anyway.”

  “What - like this one?” said Billy, pretending to lean on what was a large pedestal covered in stone ivy, about three foot high with another bowl moulded at its top. At the base of the stone pillar amongst the carved stonework was a small stone clock face, the hands indicating it was always going to be ten past three.

  “It’s fast.” said Billy as Sue scurried over, peering at the object.

  “Turn it over, Billy” she said impatiently. “See if there is anything on the base of it.”

  “It probably weighs a bloody ton!” protested Billy. Sue gave him a look and so he crouched down and began to tip the pedestal to one side. Sue crouched down to join him, producing a small jotter from her handbag. Slowly Billy managed to edge it to one side, whilst at the same time supporting its weight so that Sue could have a look at the base.

  “Bloody staff will think we have gone barmy!” whispered Billy, and he wondered why he had lowered his voice. “Is there anything there?” Sue however, was grinning wildly and scribbling quickly on the jotter. Eventually she nodded to Billy and went to sit on the bench as he righted the pedestal once again. “Let’s have it then.” he said.

  “It’s another one!” said Sue excitedly. “Here we go.” Billy joined her on the bench and leaned in closely. “Two arms have I, but fingers none. I have two feet, but cannot run. I carry well, but have found I carry best with my feet off the ground. What am I?” Billy looked around him as Sue continued to stare at the pad.

  “Is this like a treasure hunt or something?” he said as Sue sat pen balanced on her bottom lip looking at the pad.

  “No idea.” she said, winking at him before returning her attention to the pad once more. “Two feet. Two arms. Can carry.” she paused, trying to make sense of it. Billy sat back, taking in the sun. Looking across the garden ornaments all around him.

  “Sounds like a wheelbarrow to me.” he said, and pointed. “A bit like that one over there.” Sue gasped as she saw that one of the stone ornaments was indeed a small wheelbarrow, in the top of which plants could be placed. She almost ran to where it was.

  “Quick!” she shouted. “Turn it over!” Billy did run over to it, and grasping it firmly upended it, finding to his surprise that this time it was actually much lighter than it looked. They were both amazed to find that the bottom of the barrow was covered in the same crudely scratchy writing. Carefully they read the verse, Sue writing it down as she went.

  “Only one colour, but not one size. Though I’m chained to the Earth, I can easily fly. Present in sun, but not in rain. Doing no harm, and feeling no pain. What am I?”

  Billy and Sue sat back on the bench. “Blimey!” said Billy. “This is definitely getting harder.” Sue just sat staring at her pad. Much to Billy’s disdain they were still there an hour later, at which point he finally got fed up and dragged Sue off home. It was only when they got back, the riddle still unsolved, that they realised that they had forgotten the primroses yet again.

  ***

  “Buggered if I can suss it out.” said Billy as he put his feet up on the foot stool, relaxing after their tea. He had just finished the dishes and had spent a little more time on it than he normally would in order to give Sue a bit of space to do some thinking. She was currently deep in thought, jotter on her knee and a pen dangling from her right hand, tapping on the arm of the chair. Billy doubted if she had even heard him. He had spent a bit of time poring over it himself, to no avail. It was a complete mystery. They had sat in almost complete silence as they had eaten their tea, both of them trying to make some sense of the riddle, and hopefully where it would lead them next. Yet they were still stumped.

  “Chained to the Earth, I can easily fly.” said Billy out loud, trying his best to make sense of it. “What is stuck to the ground but can fly as well?” Sue tapped her pen just a little harder on the arm of the chair in irritation. “Is it a cloud?” he finished, hopefully.

  “Don’t see many clouds stuck to the ground now, do you?” said Sue, her growing irritation starting to become more apparent.

  “I suppose not.” said Billy. “It’s the only bloody thing I can think of though.” he sighed, and went back to staring at the wallpaper.

  Sue continued to examine the jotter. “I can’t see how this one works.” she finally sighed before putting the jotter down on the arm of the chair, rubbing her eyes as she did so. “It has to be an object of some sort. The other two were. I just can’t see what kind of object would be there in the sun but not in the rain.”

  “We could just go to the garden centre in the morning and turn all the orn
aments over.” said Billy hopefully, to which Sue just smiled.

  “That would be cheating!” she exclaimed. “Besides, we would probably be locked up as a pair of nutters!” Billy laughed at the thought.

  “Just a thought.” he said. “Mind you there’s probably hundreds of them. We’d be there all bloody day!”

  “Well I think it would be better if we enter into the spirit of things.” she finished, and picked the pad up once more, sighing as she did so.

  “I suppose so.” said Billy, even though he wasn’t one hundred per cent convinced, and the pair of them settled into silence once again. After a while Billy decided to water the garden and left via the back porch door to make sure the flowers in the garden got a good dousing. He was out there for a while, during which Sue could hear the hose pipe being dragged backwards and forwards. She returned to the riddle but was getting nowhere. Eventually she realised that Billy had been quiet for a while, and tutting to herself she put the pad down and went to see what he was up to. She often thought that like children that had been too quiet for some time, old men were cut from exactly the same cloth and if had gone a little bit too quiet then they were definitely up to something. She was surprised to find however that as she entered the garden all that Billy was up to was staring at clouds, the hosepipe now forgotten at his feet. She had not realised how long she had been looking at the riddle as it had by now started to go quite dark.