The Garden Plot

by Sara Sartagne

  Jonas smiled. “Getting a little more conversation, a little less action? I'll bear it in mind,” he said.

  She glared at him. “It's not a joke, dad! If you're not careful you'll turn into a dinosaur, thinking all women are fit for is a bit of ‘light stimulation’!” She made quote marks in the air.

  Jonas ducked his head meekly and backed away.

  “Oh my god—really?” Lisbeth's voice was shocked. Magda, sipping an enormous mug of milky drink masquerading as coffee, nodded disconsolately.

  “It's not even as though he's that old, but his attitude to women is nineteenth century! And Geraldine, the bloody woman he's dating now, doesn't do anything except bat her eyelashes and look appealing. She’s so plastic, she doesn't even look like she sweats. Her idea of conversation is to giggle and agree with Dad.” Magda huffed and slouched into the leather chair, almost as oversized as her mug.

  She glared into her coffee. It was all right for Lisbeth, she had a family while she had a dinosaur work-mad father and a woman with all the charm of a piranha angling to become her stepmother.

  She could just about remember her mother, all glamorous dresses and expensive perfume, but her grandmother had been the central female in her life when she was younger. Magda secretly missed her now they were in England, and she envied Lisbeth her easy relationship with her own mother.

  Lisbeth was making sympathetic noises.

  “Aren’t people weird? Your dad won't look at anyone with a brain, my Aunty Sam won't look at anyone, full stop!”

  “Why's that?” asked Magda, staring moodily into her mug.

  “Not really sure.” Lisbeth considered. “She's a bit different, Aunty Sam. She took over grandad's gardening firm when he died and she's making a really good go of it...Although she’s always saying she could do with more business, I think she’s good at what she does. She had a boyfriend, like, ages ago, but I can remember her coming to stay with us when they broke up. As far as I know, she’s never had another one.”

  “Really? Is she still smitten?”

  Lisbeth laughed. “Oh God, no! I think the bloke she was with comes back to the village occasionally with his wife and baby and they look so grim together! I heard her say once to mum that she’d had a lucky escape, so no, I think she's recovered. She's great! She climbed Kilimanjaro a couple of years ago, she goes ski-ing, all kinds of things. And she's so funny, and pretty. But I think she might be lonely. I was thinking of sending her details to a dating site without her knowing, but I’m not sure I dare. And it would be like, impossible to get her on a date without telling her!”

  She rummaged in her bag for her phone. “Look, this is Aunty Sam.” She found a photograph and held out the phone to Magda. Magda gazed at the small photo of a pixie blonde smiling out at her. She whistled.

  “Wow, she is pretty! You’re not telling me she’s single?”

  “For ages!” Lisbeth retorted as she took the phone and thumbed through some of the other photos. “My mum’s tried to set her up with friends of Daddy, and it’s always a disaster. The last time, the chap was soooo dim, and a Tory to boot. Sam's a bit political—she and Dad always used to be rowing about something or other, although I think she says stuff just to get up Dad's nose.”

  “But she's bright? And interesting?” asked Magda, suddenly intense.

  “Yeah, well I think so...why?”

  “Do you remember my dad?”

  Lisbeth rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding me? What a gorgeous...” she trailed off, her gaze meeting Magda's.

  “Quite.” Magda was dry.

  “And you think he needs someone with a brain?” Lisbeth said slowly.

  “He does. Someone...stimulating. To give him other interests besides his blasted work,” Magda said.

  “Is he well enough? He was, like, unconscious for nearly two days and only came out of hospital—what?—three weeks ago!”

  Magda waved her hand in dismissal. “Four. But he’s doing fine, apart from being a bit tired.”

  Lisbeth fell silent. She began to look worried. “Do you think it would work?” she asked after a moment.

  “No idea,” said Magda briskly, “but I think Geraldine fancies herself as my new step-mama, so frankly I'd be willing to give it a go. Dad might not want to get married, but I’d bet money Geraldine does!”

  “I’m not sure it would be the right thing to do...Aunty Sam is like, well, very independent.” Lisbeth sounded dubious.

  “Don’t be daft!” Magda scoffed. “If they don’t like one another, it won’t go anywhere.”

  “But what about Geraldine?”

  Magda thought for a moment. “She’s in Manchester most of the time, so it might not be that difficult. We could throw them together and see what happens...But how can we get them to meet? A blind date would be out of the question.”

  “And that’s even if Sam would go,” pointed out Lisbeth.

  “What about through work?”

  “They do such different things, don't they? Like, your dad builds houses, doesn’t he? Aunty Sam designs gardens,” said Lisbeth, looking dubious again.

  Magda, mindful of her father's last comment about keeping his job quiet, said vaguely, “Dad’s off work, on, like, doctor’s orders for a couple of months, so it can't be through his job.” She took a deep swallow of her lukewarm drink and thought hard. “But what about Sam's?” she continued, after a pause.

  There was a short silence and then she slammed the mug on the table, slopping milky liquid everywhere.

  “That's it! We do need some work on the garden! Oh my god, it’s totes perfect!”

  Lisbeth looked alarmed. “What? Magda, you can’t be serious! You’re going to get Aunty Sam to design your garden? That’s mental!”

  Magda grinned, at her most persuasive. “Listen, we need our garden re-designing, you just said your Aunty Sam’s always on the lookout for business, and this would bring them together and earn her some money! What’s not to love?”

  “But who would pay for it all?” Lisbeth protested.

  “I would! I have some Trust money—I can use that!”

  Lisbeth hesitated. “I’m not sure—”

  “Oh, come on! Where’s your sense of adventure? Weren’t you trying to fix her up with someone? This way, even if nothing comes of getting them together, I’ll have a new garden for the summer!”

  In the face of such determined optimism, Lisbeth fell silent. Magda took that as agreement and began to plan.

  4

  Sam sighed gently as the two middle aged ladies squared up to one another like cross squirrels.

  In the red corner was Miss Susan Miles, the corners of her mouth resolutely turned downwards, despite her name.

  In the blue corner was Mrs Pratchett, widow of this parish. Since moving into the village five years ago, Dorothy Pratchett had bullied, coaxed and blackmailed everyone in it to participate in village fairs, competitions for best kept village, open gardens' days and to campaign against the Tesco on the high street. The only reason she hadn't resurrected the ancient hunt in the village was that no-one could afford the hounds. She herself was never seen without her bulldog, Bertie, who lumbered around, leaving a trail of slobber behind him. Sam couldn’t warm to Bertie and loathed Dorothy’s politics, but couldn’t help but admire her manipulations.

  Susan Miles, with watery light blue eyes and the palest skin Sam had ever seen, exercised power of a less visible sort. Ostensibly the weakling of the pair, she didn't rant or bully or cajole—she was disappointed in people if they didn’t agree with her. Most capitulated.

  Currently, the ladies were arguing over the agenda for the Sherton Environment Protection meeting, which as usual was already late starting. Also as usual, the agenda had too much on it to get through in the two hours allotted.

  Strike that—one hour forty minutes, thought Sam as she glanced at her watch.

  “Susan, surely you see the main purpose of the meeting is to focus on the clear and present danger which is the pro
posed new development?” Mrs Pratchett huffed.

  “I suggest we spend five minutes sorting out the deadline for the garden competition and then move onto the development near Jessop’s Field,” said Desmond Black, talking over Miss Miles’ response. He was the village's resident painter and decorator, and candidate for most pompous man in Sam's acquaintance.

  Mrs Pratchett huffed and bent to fuss over her dog, ignoring the conversation for the next five minutes.

  There were about fifteen people at the meeting, all of them known to Sam in varying degrees of intimacy. While Misses Miles and Pratchett and Desmond Black negotiated a fortnight delay to the closure of the garden competition—caused, as Miss Miles explained in exhaustive detail, by a very wet winter and a late spring due to the changes in the Jet Stream and global warming—Sam looked round the room. Her librarian buddy Amanda, and the Vicar Tom and his hippy-ish wife Jenny waited patiently for the main business. There were a couple of other familiar faces, too— teachers, farmers, and bed-and-breakfast owners, who wanted to keep their picture-perfect countryside to entice their punters.

  “So now—the development near Jessop’s Field,” began Desmond Black twenty minutes later.

  No-one said anything, so Sam said; “I haven’t had chance to look at the plans, has everyone else looked at them?”

  Tom and Jenny and the two teachers—who’d come straight from school—had not. As chairs scraped and people wandered over to the displays, Amanda, her hair a new colour of blood oranges and with a nose ring adorning her pretty face, sidled up to Sam and nudged her arm.

  “You’re not going to like them.”

  “Mmm. The houses look a bit close to Jessop’s Field,” said Sam, peering at the plans. She thought the computer-generated visuals looked very attractive—but then again, they were supposed to.

  “And look,” said Amanda, pointing to another of the boards. “Look where they’re linking the development to the main road.” Sam looked.

  “That’s over Green Belt land!”

  “Quite. So what with the road’s impact on the Green Belt—cutting through a fine chunk of it, no less—and the fact that once these houses are built, there’s no reason not to build more—”

  “A bit of a Trojan Horse, you think?”

  “I imagine what they’ll say is that any other developments will reduce the distance between us and Stockwell and present that as desirable.”

  Sam, knowing Stockwell and its history, tried to be loyal to the neighbouring village.

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with Stockwell, but since the mine closed...” Sam trailed off. “But I thought there were new homes there, I’m not sure why there’s a need to build here. I know people need houses, but this will destroy the character of our village.”

  The rest of the group, having seen the plans, agreed. After hearing those who wanted to say something—mostly, Sam noted, the same thing in slightly different words—the Vicar Tom raised his hand.

  “Although the development might seem huge to us, for this developer, it’s actually very small,” he observed in his glorious bass voice, which thrilled the elderly parishioners every Sunday. “Anglo Homes’ last development near Nottingham included more than eleven thousand houses, as opposed to this, which is just for three hundred and fifty. And although planning permission was refused for the Nottingham site, Anglo Homes appealed the decision and got the OK from the Secretary of State, who overruled the local authority.”

  There was a burst of protest from the group.

  “Damned Government,” muttered Mrs Pratchett.

  “Yes, but the point is, this is not Anglo Homes’ normal business,” said Tom. “So what are they up to?”

  “I think they’ll use it as a test case, and if they get planning permission, they’ll then build more,” Amanda said darkly. There were mutters and protests from the group and then Desmond took charge.

  “As we all know, Jessop’s Field protects all kinds of wildlife,” he began. “Not to mention the impact that the building work and access roads will have on the village. We need to identify where we can object and build our case.” He looked up expectantly.

  “I’ll look at the roads and environment,” volunteered Amanda.

  “I’ll investigate the local plan from the council,” said Tom.

  “There’s legislation to protect wildlife—I’ll look at this if no-one else does?” Miss Miles looked around and as people nodded, she scribbled it in her notebook.

  “I can go through the plans in detail, and make a list of things we need to put in our objections—but I could do with some help, in case I miss something,” Sam said, mentally flicking through her diary and realising it was more or less empty.

  Jenny, the vicar’s wife smiled at her. “Good idea, I’ll do the same.”

  “We’ll need to get a move on—the consultation closes in less than three weeks,” Desmond said. Sam, who had noticed whenever something had to be done, Desmond was the last to volunteer, gave him a level look and smiled sweetly.

  “I think it would be helpful, Desmond, if you were to talk to your friends on the council—informally of course—about what they know and what their views are?” she suggested mildly.

  Desmond—who already spent a good deal of time in the Dog and Duck, ‘networking’, nodded in agreement.

  “What can I do?” asked Dorothy Pratchett.

  “Well, I think given your skills at rallying support, Mrs Pratchett, you could usefully start one of your wonderful petitions.” Tom gave Dorothy a winning smile and she preened.

  “Jolly good. Consider it done.”

  Desmond asked everyone to come to the next meeting with their research, deferred the rest of the agenda and everyone went to the pub.

  The Dog and Duck was the same as always—camp mock Tudor décor, a yellowy-golden light which was a bit too dim to read the bar menu, and yet another new landlord. This one had been there for about three months now.

  Moving away from the rest of the group, Sam took an order for a gin and tonic from Amanda and looked about. Being a Thursday, the pub was full of people pretending the weekend was already here, and Sam sniffed appreciatively at the steak pie and chips which was heading towards a table in the corner of the bar. Reminded forcibly by her stomach that she hadn’t eaten since one o’clock, she took the drinks back to Amanda.

  “I’m starving—would you mind if I ordered something to eat?”

  “Fill your boots, I’m happy with my G and T.”

  Sam immediately headed back to the bar and ordered food. Her stomach grumbled again in anticipation, startling a tall stranger next to her at the bar. They both laughed. Sam thought she’d never seen such wonderful green eyes.

  When she came back to join Amanda, the redhead was grinning at her.

  “What?”

  “Now that’s a nice example of the male sex! He’s been giving you the once-over too!”

  Surprised, Sam looked back to see the man who had laughed at her noisy digestive system staring at her. He smiled faintly. Going pink, she ducked her head and sat down, taking too large a drink from her glass of wine and starting to cough as it went down the wrong way.

  “He’s gorgeous,” was Amanda’s comment.

  Sam snatched another glance at the stranger. He was. Tall, dark and with those eyes. He was dressed expensively and looked interestingly gaunt, as if he’d been ill. Her troubles tapped at her and sadly, she refocused.

  “Yeah, but I’m not interested.” It didn’t sound that convincing. In a slightly firmer voice, she continued hunting in her bag for a tissue to wipe her mouth. “I’m too busy.”

  Amanda looked at her, perplexed. “Too busy? For that? You’re mad, woman.”

  Sam’s libido echoed the sentiment. Sam shook her head. “If you’d seen our order books for the next few months, you’d know I need to concentrate big time on getting some work, not picking up gorgeous looking men!”

  Amanda stopped gawping at the stranger at the bar and focus
ed on her friend’s now worried face.

  Sam sighed and leaned back against the threadbare upholstery. “It’s been going well up to now,” she said. “But with actually doing the work, I’ve not done the marketing for any new work. So for the next five months we don’t have much on apart from some maintenance contracts. And frankly, I can’t keep everyone employed on that income. Or at least, not employed on a living wage,” Sam explained gloomily.

  “Ah,” said Amanda. “Bank loan?”

  Sam shook her head. “Already been refused—too many businesses in the area going under.” Thanks in part to the bloody Government. She took another sip of wine. “I’ve been wondering if I’m cut out for running a business, despite what Dad thought.”

  “What, not cut out for being a corporate capitalist?” Amanda grinned as Sam laughed. “Get a grip girl! You just need some luck. I could put some flyers in the library for you, if you like?”

  Sam smiled gratefully. “It’s really kind, but I think I’ve exhausted the local market. I need clients from further out, from the Sheffield area, maybe from Stoke on Trent...” Her voice trailed off. “But I don’t really know how to get them. I’m not really a marketer, Dad always got his work through word of mouth.”

  “You’ve got a website, haven’t you? What are you doing with that?”

  “Yes, I need to get it updated—we’ve added some recent projects, but it needs an overhaul, really. I think Dad’s photo is still on it, which isn’t good.” There was a pause.

  “What about writing some articles for the local paper?”

  Sam hmm’d, thinking.

  “Or asking the local radio if you can go on to talk about solving gardening problems?” Amanda went on, warming to her theme. ‘If that dreadful woman who flopped all over our TV without a bra can do it, I’m sure you can!”

  Sam laughed, but riffled her bag for a notebook and started to write. “If I could afford to employ any more staff, I’d hire you!” she said.

  There was a pause as Sam’s steak and kidney pie was brought to the table by the new landlord, who presented it with a flourish. He finally left after an appropriate amount of fussing, and Sam tucked into the food.