‘Well, you’ve got mine for as long as you need it,’ Winston said.
Nina smiled at him. ‘Thanks, Dad.’
‘We’re very grateful.’ Nasser nodded in agreement. Then his gaze ran over the assembled crowd, pockets of people chatting in different parts of the room, some drinking tea – only Ron stuffing cake into his mouth as if it might suddenly be outlawed – all together, here for one joint purpose, and he smiled. He looked like a man satisfied he’d already done a good job, no matter the outcome from here on in. Perhaps he had, Nina thought, because people had busy lives and were often wrapped so firmly in them that they were disinterested in anything that didn’t directly affect them. It was good, if a little surprising, to see so many here today. In fact, she was certain there were more here today than there had been at the first meeting and that could only be a very good thing – it meant people had been enthused enough by the proposals to get their friends and family involved too.
Then Nasser clapped his hands together once, and the sound rang with a great sense of purpose.
‘Right,’ he announced, ‘it’s time we drew up some final plans to make all this talk a reality!’
There was a frustrating two weeks before work could start. The right people at the council had to be approached and persuaded that the project would benefit the community and wouldn’t give anyone at the town hall a headache. Eventually, they got the go-ahead, but it had been a nail-biting and fraught couple of weeks while they waited on the decision.
Nina used the time to make plans for her remembrance lanterns and to help get the word out about their garden. She and Robyn put posters up at the local shops, doctors and dentists, playgroups and nurseries and local places of worship. Robyn tried the local newspaper too; they were only vaguely interested and didn’t bother sending a reporter to cover the story, but they did allow them some free space to post a notice asking for support. Nasser had a contact at the community radio station and, though he asked her if she wanted to go on and talk about her remembrance project, Nina felt that he was far more eloquent and confident than her and he’d be better doing that himself. Nasser didn’t necessarily agree, but they did agree to put the debate on hold until they’d had some kind of confirmation from the radio station that one of their presenters was interested enough to come and talk to any of them, regardless who ended up with the job. Robyn even sent a cheeky email to the regional television station. She was disappointed, though not entirely surprised, to get no reply. Nina was more philosophical than Robyn and Nasser when it came to that kind of indifference – she supposed that their little street project was pretty unimportant in the grand scheme of things, and very few people outside Sparrow Street, let alone Wrenwick, would be interested.
There had been some lively discussion over what the donation amount for dedicating a lantern ought to be too. Nina had said that she thought one pound was affordable to anyone and would encourage wider participation, whereas Robyn argued that a measly pound was ludicrous and they’d barely collect anything for their charities with that kind of donation. She’d wanted to ask for five pounds per dedication, and after some to-ing and fro-ing, they’d settled on a compromise of three.
Then they’d had to source the lanterns themselves. Nina and Robyn had scoured furniture and home improvement shops, but it wasn’t as easy as they’d first supposed. The lanterns either weren’t right, were too expensive, or the stock wasn’t guaranteed. Eventually they’d found an online supplier where they could order batches as and when. The sample order had arrived – a delicate little storm lantern just big enough to hold a single candle – and both Nina and Robyn knew instantly they’d found the right ones.
So it was on a bright winter’s morning that around a third of Sparrow Street’s residents, along with a few of their friends, family and people from the neighbouring streets, gathered on the spare ground that would become their community space and garden of memories.
Nina yawned as she and her dad stood together waiting for everyone to arrive. When her alarm had gone off that morning she’d been very tempted to switch it off, turn over and go back to sleep. There was no way Robyn would have let her get away with that, though, and even Nina, tired as she was, wouldn’t have been able to sleep through Robyn hammering at her front door to wake her up. So she’d got up and dressed, tipped a strong coffee down her throat and headed out. The morning was dull and grey and a brisk wind rattled down the street. It didn’t feel like morning at all; it felt like night had refused to be shown the door.
‘Keeping you up, are we?’ Winston asked, cocking an eyebrow as Nina let out another yawn.
‘Do you think anyone would miss me if I headed back home for another hour in bed?’
‘Well I’m not covering for you, so on your own head be it if you get caught.’
Nina laughed. ‘Thanks for nothing,’
‘I have to say, I’m quite looking forward to getting started,’ Winston said.
It was Nina’s turn to cock a disbelieving eyebrow at him. ‘Really?’
‘Well, it makes a change from messing around with cars all day, doesn’t it?’
‘I thought you liked messing around with cars.’
‘I do. I like chocolate too, but that doesn’t mean I want to eat it morning, noon and night.’
‘I could,’ Nina said. ‘I could eat chocolate in my sleep too. I could be in bed right now, dreaming about chocolate with a drip feeding chocolate directly into my arm.’
‘It was your idea for us to do this,’ Winston said.
‘A girl can change her mind.’
‘Not this girl or this time,’ Winston said in a mock scolding tone.
Nina looked round to see a new arrival. ‘Oh, Ron’s here then.’
‘You said he wouldn’t come.’
‘I thought he might not,’ Nina said in a low voice. ‘To be honest I thought it might do us a favour if he didn’t. All he’ll do is eat all the food and complain about everything. That’s what he usually does anyway.’
‘He’s a charmer then?’ Winston asked with a wry smile.
‘Oh, absolutely,’ Nina said with one of her own.
Their appraisal of Ron’s usefulness or otherwise was interrupted by Robyn’s voice. She’d arrived with Toby a few minutes earlier, both of them looking stony-faced and barely on speaking terms. Nina knew he’d got a day off college due to a broken boiler because Robyn had told her so on the phone the previous evening, and she’d also told Nina that she was going to bring him along to help rather than leave him in the house doing nothing all day. However, judging by the look of distaste on his face as he viewed the tangle of damp, mouldering weeds covering the spare ground, he’d almost certainly decided that sitting in a freezing cold classroom would have been preferable to this.
Nina could well imagine the conversation he and Robyn had had the previous evening and she supposed, knowing Robyn as she did, it would have been hard for Toby to say no when she’d asked him to come. They were speaking now, but neither of them seemed happy about it as Nina caught snatches of the low conversation.
‘Stop moaning,’ Robyn said tersely. ‘It’s a few weeds; anyone would think I’d asked you to go down a sewer or something.’
‘It’s going to take hours,’ Toby whined. ‘I’ve got stuff to do.’
‘Like what?’
‘Revision.’
‘Don’t make me laugh! You’ve never willingly revised for anything in your life! Besides, your mocks are weeks away; it won’t kill you to take a morning off your hectic revision schedule.’
‘Everyone here is really old,’ Toby grumbled, at least having the decency to lower his voice as he uttered the insult.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. What, you think people over thirty speak Swahili or something? You can still talk to people who don’t know what an emoji is; you won’t explode or anything.’
‘Can I just do the morning then?’
‘So you can go and waste the rest of the day with that bunch of losers you
call friends?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with them.’
‘Maybe not to you there isn’t. I can see plenty and I don’t think you should spend so much time with them.’
‘I don’t. I’m always doing stuff like this with you.’
‘This is the first time in years I’ve asked you to go somewhere with me!’ Robyn gave him a pleading look now. ‘Surely you can spare one day? For me? For something that’s important to me and Nina? It’s in memory of your dad too.’
At this, Toby looked suitably shamefaced. ‘My jeans will be wrecked,’ he said, clinging onto the argument, though Nina knew and, by the look on her face, so did Robyn, that he’d given in. Toby adored his dad and had been devastated when they’d lost him. Nina knew that one mention of him would have Toby bending to his mum’s will whether he wanted to or not.
Robyn gave him a hug, which he returned stiffly and with a look of utter embarrassment.
‘Just look at it as something character-building,’ she said. ‘And you’ll be able to put it on your CV when you start applying for apprenticeships or jobs.’
‘What, I can say I managed to clear a load of shit from a scrap of ground?’
‘Trust me, it’s the sort of thing prospective employers will lap up. They’ll think you’re all public-spirited.’
Toby opened his mouth – probably to argue again – but everyone’s attention was diverted to Nasser, who called the gathering to order.
‘Can I just have a minute with you all?’
The crowd turned to face him and listened as he thanked them for coming and began to delegate tasks.
‘Nina, Robyn and…’
‘Toby,’ Robyn supplied.
‘Ah,’ Nasser replied with a warm smile. ‘Always happy to see new faces. Thank you for coming to help, Toby. Would you three be able to prune? The perimeter shrubs and bushes especially are very rangy and overgrown. You might want to pick up some thick gloves from the box by the gates over there.’
Nina and Robyn nodded, while Toby just looked at his cutting-edge trainers with some regret.
‘Winston… it would be great if you could join forces with Kelly and do some painting. The shed for a start is showing quite a lot of exposed wood.’
‘The shed might need a good clean first,’ Winston said, looking across at the grubby building with some doubt.
‘You could be right,’ Kelly put in. ‘No point in trying to paint over the grime.’
Nasser nodded. ‘It’s your project so do whatever you see fit. If you want to clear it out and clean it down, that’s fine by me.’
‘So we might not get to paint it today because it will need to dry out first,’ Kelly said.
‘Let’s not worry about that now,’ Nasser said. ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day and I’m sure we’ll all be coming back again to do more on here anyway.’
There was a loud groan. Nina saw that it had come from Ron’s direction. ‘We’re not building Rome.’
‘It’s a saying,’ Robyn snapped. ‘Surely even you’ve heard it before.’
‘Ron and Mitch…’ Nasser turned to the two men now, holding up a conciliatory hand to smooth any budding animosity between Ron and Robyn, who seemed to raise each other’s hackles on sight. ‘Could you work together?’
Ron looked at Mitch, and Mitch – a man in his sixties who lived at the very end of Sparrow Street and whom Nina didn’t know all that well – looked at Ron. They both wore the expressions of two men who would rather do anything than work together. But they were both stocky and well-built and it was no surprise when Nasser went on to ask them to ferry the wheelbarrows of rubbish and garden waste to a waiting skip.
Nasser then went on to delegate further tasks to various groups of people. Most were fairly happy to let him do this, although some tried to interfere or assert their own authority, and some just downright complained. But he was a tenacious and firm leader, and eventually everyone fell into line.
There was a lot of chat and excitement as they began, but it didn’t take long for the mood to sober as the reality of the work hit them. It was backbreaking and often boring, and it was only a sense of camaraderie and optimism for the nicer bits of the transformation that would follow that kept everyone going. Toby did as little as it was possible to get away with, gingerly lifting the odd solitary branch here and there and snipping it delicately before taking a leisurely walk to the nearest wheelbarrow and tossing it in. Robyn didn’t chastise him, though; she only snorted with laughter every now and again, throwing Nina an amused look.
‘He’s here,’ she said as he took his third stick to the rubbish pile. ‘I don’t suppose I can expect more than that.’
‘I can’t say I blame him if I’m honest,’ Nina replied with a wry smile. ‘I sort of feel that way about it myself. Promising to do this stuff is one thing but doing it is quite another.’
‘Yeah, I can’t say I wouldn’t rather be having a spa day. Still, it’ll be good when it’s finished.’
‘I hope so,’ Nina said. ‘But next time I go to a community meeting full of bright ideas about doing up a garden, please feel free to slap some sense into me.’
Robyn laughed. ‘It would be my pleasure.’
By the time everyone had agreed to stop for a lunch break roughly half the area had been cleared. It now lay waiting, soil turned to expose debris that needed to be sifted from the surface, already beginning to look like an exciting blank canvas. Nasser had ordered new topsoil and that was due to arrive at the end of the week, giving them a clear deadline to work to, and which had been paid for by way of what Robyn referred to as a ‘quick whip-round’. They had plants to follow that had been paid for in the same way and everyone had given generously. Although Nina had expected people to get behind the project, she’d been seriously taken aback by the amount of their own money people were happy to put in.
Lunch had been organised in much the same way as the work they’d gathered to undertake. Every day throughout the duration of the project, it had been agreed that different neighbours would take it in turns to provide bits of the meal that everyone who was working that day would share. Today, Martha and Ada had made more of their generally inedible cake, labouring under the misapprehension that people’s polite comments about their baking meant they actually liked it. Judging by the decoration, it was some kind of almond sponge, though it was anyone’s guess really. It lay suspiciously untouched for the most part – as it often did – though, just as always, the sisters hardly seemed to register that this might say more about the cake than people’s well-meant white lies did. Kelly had baked sausage rolls and mini vegetable pies that were going down rather better, and Nasser’s wife Yasmin had provided flasks of divinely spiced vegetable soup. Nina and her dad had got up early and made piles of sandwiches together – perhaps the laziest option – but people seemed happy to eat them anyway.
Everyone sat together now on walls, upturned crates, folding chairs, boxes, car bonnets… wherever they could get comfy to share the meal. Despite all his complaints, even Ron had managed to break a sweat and sat heavily now, panting as he twisted open a flask of soup and poured himself a mug. Many had expressed quiet surprise to see him there at all.
Nina felt good and happy as she ate, sitting in between Winston and Robyn while Toby had taken himself off to the nearest fast-food restaurant to spend an hour with some friends. Robyn had warned him that he had to come back for the afternoon session, though even she had conceded now that it wouldn’t surprise her all that much if he didn’t.
‘This soup is amazing!’ she said, taking a sip. ‘I wonder if Nasser’s wife can give me the recipe.’
‘I’ve got a feeling she probably makes it up as she goes along,’ Nina said. ‘She’s that sort of cook, you know? Just knows how to put things together and make them taste wonderful.’
‘I’ll ask her for some pointers anyway,’ Robyn said. ‘Honestly, Toby doesn’t know what he’s missing.’
‘There’s probably too high a
risk of vegetables in there for him to chance it,’ Nina said.
Winston and Robyn both chuckled.
‘I’m sure he’ll enjoy his cheeseburger,’ Winston said.
‘He’d enjoy this soup if he gave it a chance,’ Robyn said.
‘Probably, but it would be too uncool to admit it,’ Winston replied cheerily. ‘I was a young man once and I remember that pressure to look for peer approval well.’
‘Did they have cheeseburgers in the Middle Ages then, Dad?’ Nina asked.
Winston laughed. ‘Cheeky madam!’
Nina turned to Robyn, munching on a tuna sandwich. ‘I’m amazed you got Toby to come.’
‘He didn’t have much choice; it’s part of his punishment,’ Robyn replied with a dark look.
‘Punishment?’
Robyn let out a heavy sigh. ‘I don’t know what’s got into him lately. The slightest thing seems to set him off. Apparently, he lost it over a seat in the college canteen last week and tried to beat the crap out of another lad. I imagine the other lad was just as bad – both determined to square up to each other and then neither wanting to lose face – but… well, that’s just not Toby; at least it didn’t used to be. I have to wonder… when Eric died I thought at first we’d get through it together and it seemed like we were. Toby was just… well, he didn’t seem to be that affected, apart from missing his dad like crazy. There must have been something going on in his head, though, something he wasn’t letting anyone see. Now, as he gets older, I’m beginning to wonder if the lack of a father figure is becoming a problem for him. And I think maybe he’s always carried issues relating to Eric’s death, more than anyone realised.’
‘You think maybe it’s just taken a little while for this to start showing itself?’ Nina asked. She hadn’t had anyone else to think about when Gray died. It was just her and her grief that she’d had to deal with. Of course, his family had her support, but they had lots of other support too and it didn’t really matter whether the quality of what she was able to offer was good enough or not.
But Robyn had Toby and Toby only had Robyn. Would Nina have managed any better in the same situation? Would she have been able to deal with the extra burden? It had been tough enough to deal with her own grief, let alone that of a child who was relying on her, a child who looked to the one parent he had left to show him the way, to make life better for him again. She and Gray had always imagined they had plenty of time for children, but then his diagnosis came and all that had changed. They’d talked about trying for a family before he got too ill, and the doctors had gone through alternatives with them like freezing sperm, but in the end, Nina had wanted to focus on him. She hadn’t wanted another thing to worry about, to be disappointed about if it didn’t work, to make Gray feel like a failure if she didn’t get pregnant. And, if she was honest, she’d been selfish. She had wanted it to be just her and him, until the end; she hadn’t wanted another human demanding their attention, getting in the way. Often, she regretted that decision now, because at least if they’d had a child she’d have had some part of him with her, but it was too late for regrets, no matter how keenly she might feel them.
The Garden on Sparrow Street: A heartwarming, uplifting Christmas romance Page 7