The Garden on Sparrow Street: A heartwarming, uplifting Christmas romance

by Tilly Tennant

  ‘Ugliness? But you’re lovely!’

  ‘I’m not, but thank you. Let’s just say that if I look OK now, the years since I was a teenager have been a bit kinder to me. This hair didn’t help for a start, and I had shocking acne.’

  Robyn almost sighed with longing as her eyes went to Nina’s head. ‘I’d kill for your hair.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have done back then; it was totally uncontrollable. It’s not much better now to be honest.’

  ‘At least it doesn’t look like someone gave you hair as an afterthought,’ Robyn said.

  ‘I like your hair,’ Nina replied warmly. ‘It’s nice and shiny.’

  ‘My hairdresser says it’s fine,’ Robyn said. ‘Which means there’s hardly any point to it at all. If only my waistline could be as fine.’

  Nina giggled. ‘Your waistline is fine.’

  ‘It’s just cracking if you’re a walrus,’ Robyn said. ‘I suppose there’s nobody to blame but myself for that – I’m just too fond of the cakes to do anything about it now.’

  ‘I think you’re perfect as you are. Life’s too short to diet.’

  ‘Says the size-ten woman. Anyway,’ Robyn added impishly, ‘I said I was a bit on the porky side, but I never said I wasn’t perfect.’

  Nina snorted. ‘OK,’ she said, trying to get her laughter under control now, ‘we’d better finish up or you’ll never get home to Toby. Oh, who’s this person at the council you’re going to target for help?’

  ‘Nina, you know who it is.’

  ‘Well, I did wonder if it was Peter, but… are you sure that’s a good idea?’

  ‘We’re both adults, aren’t we?’

  ‘But… well, won’t it be a bit awkward to approach him?’

  ‘We parted on fairly good terms.’

  Nina raised a sceptical eyebrow.

  ‘OK, so it was a bit difficult, but there’s no blame with me and I figure he owes me the favour.’

  ‘And you won’t be tempted to get involved with him again and get your heart broken again?’

  ‘My heart wasn’t broken.’

  ‘You raged for weeks.’

  ‘That wasn’t heartbreak, that was just anger.’

  ‘And you’re all better now?’

  ‘It’s been six months – plenty of time to get over that git. It’ll be strictly professional.’

  ‘And if you find out that his wife has gone this time…?’ Nina asked, raising her eyebrows again.

  ‘Wouldn’t change a thing,’ Robyn said firmly. ‘One chance with me and that’s it.’

  ‘Right.’ Nina smiled. ‘So what makes you think he’d be willing to help?’

  ‘Despite the mess he made of everything, he’s a decent bloke and I know his dad had Alzheimer’s so I think the charity thing will appeal to him.’

  ‘You don’t think having this much contact will make you regret your decision to end things with him?’

  Robyn shook her head.

  ‘I know you better than that,’ Nina said.

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t get anything past you, can I? I suppose I can’t deny there’s still something there. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it led to other things… I’m not getting any younger… Toby’s growing up too quickly and soon he won’t need me… I don’t want to end up alone…’ Robyn sighed. ‘Take your pick from those and many other reasons.’

  ‘And you think Peter will be the answer to all that?’

  ‘Maybe not. I think he would help with the garden, though, and that’s what we’re really interested in here.’

  ‘I don’t know. It all sounds like a big ask to me.’

  ‘You don’t think he’d help?’

  ‘I don’t think you should be putting your feelings on the line for our garden.’

  ‘I won’t be. It’s not like I want to marry him or anything.’

  ‘I just hope it doesn’t backfire on you, that’s all.’

  ‘Of course it won’t. You worry too much.’

  ‘I know. I can’t help it.’

  Robyn drained her cup and handed it to Nina. ‘I’ll call him tomorrow; it’ll be fine, you’ll see. In the meantime, I’d better get back to Toby. Reckon my shoes will have dried out by now?’

  Nina glanced towards the trainers that were sitting next to the fire. The steam that had been wreathing away from them for the last hour seemed to have stopped now. ‘Probably,’ she said.

  ‘If they have or haven’t, I suppose I’d better get them on anyway,’ Robyn said. ‘Thanks for the tea.’

  ‘Thank you for coming to the meeting. Your help means a lot to us… to me.’

  ‘Like you said,’ Robyn said with a grin, ‘I’m always up for a challenge, and this seems like one hell of a challenge to me. How could I resist?’

  Chapter Five

  When Nina went to drag her bins out for collection the next morning, Ron was out too. His garden was half the length of the street away from Nina’s, but he came over to speak to her anyway. After his behaviour at the meeting, Nina couldn’t imagine why, but perhaps there was more truth in what she’d said to Robyn about him being lonely than she’d realised.

  ‘Need some help with that?’ he asked, looking at the bin Nina had just deposited at the kerbside.

  ‘Thank you, but I’ve already done it,’ she replied. It was quite obvious to anyone that the task had been accomplished.

  Ron shoved his hands in his pockets and jingled some loose change, looking apologetic. ‘Oh… right. Just thought I’d ask. They’re heavier than they look, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’ Nina gave him an awkward smile. ‘But the wheels help.’

  ‘Of course… they do.’

  They lapsed into silence. Ron looked at the worn old slippers on his feet while Nina glanced up and down the street, as if to find help or inspiration from one of her neighbours. But they were alone, and when she looked back at Ron, he was regarding her now with an expression that suggested some kind of internal struggle.

  ‘I expect you’re busy today,’ he said finally.

  ‘Well…’ Nina began.

  ‘Of course,’ he continued. ‘A lot to do when you’re on your own, isn’t there? Nobody to help with the chores is there?’

  ‘No,’ Nina agreed. ‘But you get used to it.’

  ‘Do you?’ Ron asked.

  Nina gave a half-smile. It looked as if Ron was struggling with the separation from his wife more than he let on.

  ‘Eventually,’ she said. ‘You’ve not heard from Yvette, then?’

  ‘Hmmm? Oh yes, she phones all the time. Wants to know if I’m alright, you know…’

  Nina wondered if that was true, but Ron was hardly going to say so if it wasn’t. She felt sorry for him but there wasn’t much she could do – there wasn’t much anyone else could do about the situation between Ron and his wife except Ron and his wife.

  ‘I’d better…’ she began, indicating her house, ‘you know… lots to do.’

  Ron gave a solemn nod. ‘Of course. So you’ll let me know if you need anything? Anytime. I’m always just down the road after all.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Nina said. ‘That’s kind.’

  Ron looked down at his feet again.

  ‘How’s the job hunting going?’ she asked, her natural empathy undoing her once again as he looked up. Instantly she regretted the impulse to show an interest. She had plenty to do inside, including her own job hunting, but now she’d handed him the perfect opportunity to hold her up. He shook his head and gave a theatrical sigh.

  ‘Terrible. Nobody wants a man pushing sixty. I wish I’d never given up my old job to go to Spain – worst thing I ever did. I had it cushy in the post office.’

  ‘You could go back? They’d have you, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘It’s not the same now. When I joined back in the day it was a job for life with a good pension and reasonable working hours. Now it’s all zero-hours contracts and working till you drop. As for a pension, none of those young lads starting work now will
have a penny put aside when they get to my age. You have to feel sorry for them.’

  ‘You do,’ Nina agreed, though she didn’t really know anything about any of that. ‘But you weren’t to know how things would turn out for you when you decided to go to Spain.’

  Ron gave that grave shake of his head again, as if he was a world leader just about to declare war. ‘I should have done. I shouldn’t have let Yvette talk me into it. And now look – she’s living it up in the sun and I’m here alone with no job.’

  And then it began to rain, and Ron looked up at the heavens as if in melancholic appreciation of some divine irony.

  ‘Biggest mistake I ever made,’ he muttered, looking back at Nina. ‘Should never have listened to her.’

  Nina’s heart went out to him. For all the awkwardness, she hated to see him so down. It half-crossed her mind to talk to Robyn about whether they could engineer some sort of match for him with another single woman they might know, but then she checked herself. In the real world, not the world of Jane Austen novels, that sort of meddling usually ended in trouble. It was probably better to let fate take this one – when the right woman for Ron came along, Nina could only hope that fate would bring them together.

  ‘You’ve got good neighbours and friends here,’ she said. ‘Even if the weather isn’t quite as good as it is in Spain. At least you have that.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, sounding unconvinced.

  ‘Well, maybe getting involved in the garden project will help you feel more positive then. It’ll certainly keep us all occupied for a few weeks and it will bring everyone together.’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t got time for that,’ Ron said bitterly.

  Nina stared at him. ‘What?’

  ‘I haven’t got time.’

  ‘But you… surely you’ve got a little time to spare!’

  If any of them had time to spare, she’d have thought it was Ron. She couldn’t help but feel that his refusal was a bit mean in the circumstances, and she half-wished she hadn’t defended him to Robyn the previous day. She could also have pointed out that if he was lonely and fed up with his wife living in Spain, then there was a cure for that and it was called making friends with his neighbours.

  ‘Nasser wants to stop getting ideas above his station,’ Ron continued. ‘He’s no better than any of us but he doesn’t half think he’s someone.’

  ‘I think he genuinely wants to improve things for the community,’ Nina said sharply.

  ‘He’s a jumped-up little captain.’

  ‘Steady on! Don’t you think that’s a bit unfair?’

  ‘Well…’ Ron said, sounding like a chastised child now.

  The rain was getting heavier and colder and Nina could feel it beginning to soak through her jumper.

  ‘I really ought to get in,’ she said, glancing up at the rapidly darkening sky. She didn’t want to lose her temper with Ron, but she could feel the frustration building at his attitude.

  ‘Right,’ Ron said, sinking his hands deeper into his pockets. If the weather was bothering him he wasn’t showing much sign of it. Nina had the impression he’d quite like to keep her out a little longer, but she was very aware of how wet she was getting now and catching pneumonia wasn’t exactly at the top of her to-do list.

  ‘Well, I’ll see you later then, Ron,’ she said.

  He nodded and, without another word, turned and began to walk back to his house, leaving Nina to hurry inside herself. You could only have so much sympathy for someone’s situation, and Ron didn’t exactly make himself easy to sympathise with. It wasn’t something she had time to worry about right now, though, because she’d plenty enough worries of her own.

  It had taken Nina most of the morning to make her CV look at least semi-appealing and sign up to an employment-agency website. Although she’d eventually managed to register without too much of a hitch, she wasn’t altogether convinced that her CV was going to have potential employers lining up outside her door. She certainly wouldn’t employ herself on the basis of what experience and work record she had to offer, that much she was sure of. In the end, it had all been a bit depressing and, after trying and failing to get Robyn on the phone for a chat to get it off her chest, she glanced up at the clock and remembered that she’d arranged to go and have lunch with her dad anyway. She didn’t think he’d mind if she arrived early and so she headed out.

  The morning’s downpour had stopped and a weak sun was pushing through the clouds, which meant that she could do the walk across town instead of taking the bus. The air and exercise would do her good and give her an opportunity to blow the cobwebs of misery from her mind.

  Twenty minutes later she was standing outside her dad’s pristine bungalow. At least, the house itself was pristine, though the garden was usually anything but. At any given time there might be three or four different cars on the tarmac driveway in various states of disrepair. She could see his feet now, sticking out from beneath an orange Ford Cortina that looked as if it belonged in a seventies cop show. There were bits of the engine spread out around the car, and bits of what might well be engines from other cars, along with half an old Astra. Nina smiled as her dad’s feet tapped in time to a tape player which sat beside his workspace, blasting out rock music. Led Zeppelin, if Nina’s memory served her correctly. She’d certainly heard enough of it growing up that she ought to remember it, even if it had never been her favourite music in the world. If he’d been playing it at its current volume in Sparrow Street there would almost certainly have been complaints, but everyone here knew Winston Alder was a little deaf in one ear and they forgave him the odd loud session.

  Nina let herself in at the gate and bent to switch the tape player off. Her dad rolled out from under the car, his frown crinkling into a smile as he saw who had interrupted his music.

  ‘Oh, hello, love! I wasn’t expecting it to be you just yet!’

  He got up and Nina reached to kiss a cheek whiskered with hair as white as hers was black. The hair on his head had thinned considerably over the years but it was still a decent thatch for a man in his seventies – at least he always insisted it was – even if that was as white as flour too. He was still quick and wiry, and kept lively by his hobby of rebuilding old cars which he sold on to provide a little income. The evidence of his hobby littered the driveway now, and Nina had had to tread carefully as she’d navigated the path.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But I was feeling a bit fed up and I didn’t think you’d mind.’

  ‘Fed up?’ he asked, his smile fading into a look of concern. ‘Everything alright?’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing serious,’ she said, forcing a cheery smile. ‘Just a bit of this and that… you know how it is.’

  He reached for a rag from his waistband and wiped the oil from his hands. ‘Want to tell me about it anyway?’

  ‘Maybe over a cup of tea? I could put the kettle on while you finish here.’

  ‘Oh, I reckon I’ve just about done enough for today,’ he said, glancing at the detritus of his morning’s work.

  ‘How about I start in the kitchen while you clear it all up then?’

  ‘Lovely,’ he said. ‘What do you want for lunch?’

  ‘I’ll have a look in the freezer,’ Nina said, knowing full well that she wasn’t going to find anything fresh in the house. Winston had coped admirably since the death of Nina’s mum but that had never stretched to healthy eating. Still, what he had in the freezer and store cupboards provided a reasonably balanced diet, even if none of it was fresh, and so Nina had decided long ago not to worry about it; he certainly wouldn’t have thanked her for nagging him over it.

  She made her way up the drive, leaving him to collect his tools and put away his radio.

  ‘There’s a nice bit of cod if you fancy that,’ he called after her.

  She turned and nodded before letting herself into the unlocked house. In the hall hung an old wedding photo of her parents – her dad in a sharp suit with a mop of thick hair, her mum looking radiant
and adorable in a calf-length wedding dress of white lace and white silk shoes, her hair swept up into a voluminous bun, wearing false eyelashes that could have knocked passing cyclists off their bikes.

  ‘Hello, Mum,’ Nina said, blowing a kiss at the photo. ‘You look lovely as always.’

  Nina’s mum smiled on as Nina carried on down the hall.

  They’d lost her ten years earlier. Nina had been twenty-five when she died and it had changed everything. Nina and her dad got by now, but they’d both had some hard years. Having Gray had helped when Nina’s mum had first died, but then shortly afterwards came his own terrible diagnosis and Nina had felt for a while that life was too cruel to make it even worth bothering. But she’d pulled herself together because Gray had needed her and, no matter what else was happening, she’d had to think of that.

  Nina’s dad, Winston, had barely changed the house since his wife’s death. Right down to the fake plastic roses, the colour leached from the outer petals by the sun as they gathered dust in a crystal vase on the windowsill, the reminders of Miriam Alder were everywhere. The prints she’d hung, the sofa she’d chosen, the wallpaper she’d spent a frustrating Sunday putting up, complaining all the while that Winston would rather piece together a rusting old Volvo than help her, the rug they’d brought back from a holiday in Turkey, the china rescued from an elderly aunt’s house… Nina imagined that her dad took comfort in the thought that a little of his wife remained, captured in all the things she’d once owned and loved, that she was still in every room, because Nina herself felt the same way about the things she’d kept after Gray’s death.

  She headed to the kitchen, eyeing the dishes in the sink. It looked like more than one day’s washing up, but that was no surprise. Winston had told Nina on more than one occasion that he didn’t see the point in filling a bowl with hot water until he’d produced enough dirty crockery to justify it, and living on his own as he did on mostly frozen food, that took quite a while to do. Now that she was here, however, Nina decided that she’d quickly do them before they had lunch to get them out of the way, as she always did. Her dad would watch dolefully like a chastised little boy, refusing to help on principle but feeling as if he ought to just the same.