Between each thrust of the spade’s blade he’d stretch himself tall and then lean forward with both hands on the spade’s handle to maximise the downward force. His method was honed and it was clear he’d found a rhythm to his work years ago. Occasionally he’d stop and pick something up, examine it carefully only to throw it dispassionately into the centre of the lawn where a number of small birds, hopping hopefully nearby, would swoop competitively to retrieve it, as if part of a practiced routine. Snails, Sam decided, judging by the flash of contempt on the gardener’s face.
As she watched him, Sam became aware of a disturbance from beyond, a young woman was emerging from the back door of the house. The rear entrance was just below garden level and she came up the two deep steps confidently, carrying a mug in each hand.
Sam studied her carefully. She was her age, certainly no older. The man’s daughter, she wondered at first, but she dismissed this theory as unlikely as quickly as she’d fallen upon it. The young woman walked the full length of the lawn with an easy pace and handed a mug to the gardener. She wore neat black trousers and a white shirt. Her hair was scraped back into a ponytail and she wore no make-up. She looked a little apologetic as she approached. The gardener frowned and looked like he might even refuse to stop working but after some hesitation he thrust his spade into the ground, leaving it anchored in the soil.
‘Cuppa,’ the woman said, with a pleasant smile, extending the mug towards him.
Now with his back to her, Sam couldn’t quite hear the gardener’s response but he shrugged heavily and motioned towards the barrow where a thermos flask leant against the wheel. He took the tea regardless.
‘When are you going to grow some flowers I can use in the house?’ she asked, brightly. She looked around the broad borders. ‘It seems silly that you work as hard as you do, and we still pay to get the florist in once a week.’
Sam held her breath, trying to hear the gardener’s mumbled response but it was impossible to make out. The young woman spoke quite clearly, however.
‘I know she doesn’t. But I’d love to come out here in the summer for an armful of something I could use. Could she be persuaded, do you think?’
There was another exchange before Sam could hear the woman’s words again. ‘But I’ve only worked here for a short time. She might listen to you, you’ve been here for ever.’
The woman listened to his response and took a sip of her drink.
‘Great, thank you. It’s worth a go, anyway.’
Sam was intrigued. This great big house had staff and an enigmatic owner, a woman. A woman who liked gardens enough to hire a gardener but not to grow flowers for the house apparently. Sam once again imagined herself tracing a route to the front door, and hearing this conversation had allowed the idea of ringing on the doorbell to become a little more concrete as a possibility, not just a fantasy.
Glad she’d witnessed this exchange, however simple, Sam wandered on to explore more footpaths, knowing that whichever one she took, it would inevitably lead her to the woodland dwelling. She was as curious about its inhabitants as she was about those who lived in the fine, big house with its perfect lawn, and she felt nervous as she entered the thick of the trees, but it was a nervousness borne of excitement not fear.
She quickened her pace as she recognised some landmarks, knowing she was closing in on the caravan but when she arrived, she slowed right down, walking past gingerly and looking all the time for a glimmer of life from within.
Once again, it seemed forlornly abandoned. Despite this, she thought she could smell a trace of wood-smoke in the air which hinted at habitation, but the sheer degradation of the structure suggested otherwise. She imagined knocking on this door but knew that would take much more courage than arriving uninvited at the big white house. Those bigger houses insisted on visitors, despite their many deterrents in the shape of fences, gates, intruder alarms and staff but this caravan wasn’t suggesting it wanted to be disturbed. Quite the opposite, this caravan was making it very clear that the whole purpose of being there was to avoid disturbance.
Resigned, but strangely disappointed that Anne’s witch in the wood was probably a myth with no more reality than an abandoned caravan, she turned and repeated her previous walk but in the opposite direction and, once back at Broome Cottage, she applied herself to Danny’s paperwork.
Using the methodology she had employed before, she tipped the boxes out and sorted the contents into piles. It became immediately clear that Danny’s paperwork trail told a far more accomplished story than her own: paperwork relating to pension plans, ISAs and mortgage tracker funds; membership of various professional organisations; an invitation to a foreign conference; letters of congratulation; confirmations of pay-rises; contracts stating new job specifications. And each one of these steps up the corporate ladder required its own heightened bureaucracy to capture the greater responsibility that came with increased income and benefits, so that each increment, in turn, generated further paperwork and an accumulation of the necessary administration that was associated with safeguarding and protecting his wealth, his health and his life.
Sam found small pockets of sadness too, amongst the paperwork. An order of service, a faded wedding photograph, correspondence with the executors of his father’s will (the prescriptive provisions for an only son spelt out with the painstaking precision by a tidy mind and the certain knowledge of its own imminent demise). But somehow Danny had wrestled order and his own carefully considered future from these ashes.
Sam was so proud of Danny. Orphaned in his early twenties, some young men would have used it as a reason not to work, or to go off the rails entirely, but not Danny, he had barely wavered from his self-determined path. His approach to adulthood had always been systematic. Even his choice of career had been thoroughly researched and investigated. When they’d first met, Danny had told her, with pride in his voice, that long before settling on a university degree, he had filled out a spreadsheet that detailed the number of years of education (and associated costs) and matched these with the lifetime earning opportunity for any career that he might be equipped for. He knew he was a competent all-rounder so would not have been daunted by any number of different directions, but his A Level choices had ruled out medicine and science and his cost-versus-benefit study had ruled out architecture and law so he’d settled on a career in actuary and had never deviated from that path. He was doing extremely well, earning promotions and the remuneration that went with it, and he was fulfilled by his role.
Though she found it baffling, Sam was full of admiration for such a structured approach to responsibility. Where she had stumbled and lurched from each emotional milestone to the next, shocked when people talked to her as though she might have adult sensibilities, Danny had purposefully set out to greet maturity at a pre-determined destination and time, allocating himself along the way a whole raft of astonishingly specific benchmarks by which he could measure his progress. These criteria were quite alien to Sam, who always felt like she was adopting the mannerisms of an adult, rather than actually becoming one.
Sam reflected on their different paths while she carefully filed Danny’s paperwork. Once done, she opened her own drawer again and was pleased to see that her medical folders already looked less dominant now they were filed away. She wondered if Danny hoped her years of ill-health could be filed neatly away to be forgotten and that perhaps a miracle might yet happen, but this was just speculation. Danny had continued to insist that a family was not important to him, that he had all the family he wanted with her. And whilst Sam had initially been suspicious of his insistence on buying a three-bedroomed property, his argument rang true to his character when he maintained that a larger house was the more prudent investment.
Sam continued to work attentively, finding a quiet pleasure in preparing folders and file names and making sure there was plenty of room left for the many chapters life would yet deliver. It was a quality of pleasure that she believed, sincerely, might be able t
o prevent her reaching for her laptop, plugging it in and transferring the poison from within it to the crevices of her fragile mind.
Chapter 11
Birds ferried nest material back and forth, flitting past the windows of Broome Cottage. Had she been aware of it, the busyness of their purpose and the urgency of their quest would have panicked Sam who was in search of a restfulness that she believed belonged uniquely to the countryside.
Quite unconscious of the ferocity of activity all around her, Sam had been kneeling on the spare room floor for long enough for her skin to take on the cross-hatched imprint of the carpet. She had been having an argument with herself, fighting the urge to power up her laptop and check the messages that she knew would be amassing like ants around a crumb, but she was talking to herself in a stern voice, reminding herself that she was quite strong enough to resist the pull. When the doorbell rang, bouncing her out of her reverie, she hurried downstairs but seeing the blurred outline of a woman through the distorted glass of the front door, and suspecting a repeat visit from Anne, she took a few deep breaths to calm herself and, regretting her choice of a short skirt that morning, took a further moment to rub futilely at her red, patterned knees.
She composed her face into an untroubled look of welcome and opened the door.
Anne was not on the doorstep. Instead, another shorter altogether more dishevelled woman with the ruddy complexion of a farmer, was standing there. The visitor had both arms outstretched, thrusting a plated cake towards her. Sam noticed her broken fingernails and torn, sore cuticles as she took the plate and she immediately warmed to her, recognising the blatant evidence of a worrier. Meanwhile the visitor garbled her introduction, in a voice giddy with its mix of anxiety and excitement.
‘I’m your neighbour, Hattie. Two doors down. It’s a bit old-fashioned, but I thought I’d welcome you with a cake.’
Sam smiled generously and welcomed her visitor in. ‘Cake’s not old-fashioned, it’s right on trend. Come on in,’ she said kindly, whilst inwardly amused at the idea that people still took cake to their neighbours. She led the way into the kitchen, allowing Hattie to follow behind her. Aware that the kitchen was too warm to sit in comfortably, she went immediately to open the window above the sink, allowing a rush of cooler air to enter and bathe her face. She addressed Hattie over her shoulder as she fixed the window latch in place. ‘Assuming it’s gluten free?’
Hattie, who was already taking her place at the kitchen table faltered, stammering her reply. ‘Oh gosh no, how insensitive of me. I’m so sorry.’
‘I’m teasing,’ said Sam, with a laugh. ‘I love cake, all cake, particularly the glutinous type.’
Hattie smiled, relieved, but was now on edge, finding Sam’s flippancy unnerving.
Sam busied herself opening the cupboard to take out the teabags and plugging in the electric kettle. The kettle had been in their London home and Sam felt a surge of affection for it as she flicked the switch down. Reinventing herself as a country dweller capable of welcoming cake-bearing neighbours with no cynicism was going to be a challenge but little reminders of her past life gave her the small boost of power she needed.
She looked at Hattie who appeared to be appraising the cake in front of her intently as if it were a complete mystery to her. ‘Do you want a slice now?’ asked Sam, not exactly sure of the etiquette involved in neighbourly cake deliveries – there hadn’t been too many of those in SW11.
Hattie glanced at her watch and pulled an exaggerated expression of horror. ‘Bit early for me. The sugar will send me wild and I’ll spend the rest of the day rooting through the back of cupboards searching for sugar fixes and popping the children’s vitamin chews like a demented addict. A cup of tea would be perfect if you’ve got the time.’ She nodded towards Sam as she fussed around the kitchen and was now adding several unnecessary procedures to a routine she usually found quite straightforward.
As Sam moved from sink to cupboard, Hattie stood and replaced Sam in front of the window, looking out at the neat lawn, the bare beds and the high wooden fence that enshrouded it all.
‘What a lovely kitchen, and a gorgeous garden,’ Hattie gushed. ‘They did a super job here, didn’t they? I came and had a nose around when it went on the market the first time around but, goodness me, it needed a lot of work. This is gorgeous – it’s like a new-build but with all the old-world charm. I’m really jealous, it makes mine look like a complete slum. You must be thrilled!’
Sam smiled affably. ‘Yes, it’s been a dream of ours for an absolute age. We’re just glad to be in the countryside finally. I’m not sure my husband and I could have survived living in London for very much longer,’ said Sam, quite deliberately filling in some gaps for her visitor.
Hattie looked relieved, allowing her shoulders to sag in the knowledge that she was talking to a kindred spirit. ‘How long have you been married?’
‘Four years,’ said Sam, as she squeezed the teabags against the sides of the cups.
‘Gosh!’ said Hattie with a shy, hopeful smile. ‘So, you must be thinking of starting a family soon. Unless…’ She hesitated, first noting Sam’s trim figure and swiftly moving on to scan the kitchen for signs of children’s artwork on the fridge door, or the tell-tale signs of bright plastic toys in the garden. Seeing none, she carried on enthusiastically as Sam stopped her preparations and turned to face her guest. ‘This house is going to be perfect for raising a family, in the heart of the countryside but with a nice safe garden.’ Hattie’s voice trailed off as she saw the change in Sam’s face. Two pink spots had formed on her pale cheeks and though she was leaning back against the kitchen units, Hattie saw her clutch the edge of the work surface as if to steady herself.
Sam’s palms had started to sweat. She knew it wasn’t Hattie’s fault, she knew the questioning was entirely innocent. She knew she was already harbouring resentment that should have been neutralised some other way, at some other time. Yet she also knew that she might be incapable of preventing an inappropriate response.
‘We’re not planning to have a family,’ Sam said, amazed by her own calm delivery despite the instantaneous racing of her heart. She tried to inject some warmth into the statement, but its delivery was cooler than she’d intended.
Hattie stammered her reply, ‘Oh, sorry, I just assumed…’ but Sam quickly cut her off with the conversational equivalent of a blow to the back of the head.
‘I can’t have children.’ Here Sam was looking for disarming nonchalance, but she knew from Hattie’s downward glance that again her words had landed with more weight than she’d meant.
Hattie had looked momentarily crestfallen but quickly brightened, pulling herself taller and looking quizzically at Sam. ‘But have you explored IVF? You’re very young still, so there’s plenty of time. I’ve heard so many stories of miracles recently. A friend of mine…’
Sam could hear her heartbeat in her ears as she ploughed on with a resolve she felt unable to control. Her anger should not find release with this visitor, it was unfair, unkind. But still she pressed on, responding not just to Hattie but to the multitude of similar sentiments that had paved the path to this moment. ‘I don’t have a womb so plugging that particular gap is probably an obstacle beyond the reach of a miracle.’
‘Oh gosh.’ Hattie lurched in Sam’s direction and Sam thought she might be about to throw her arms around her. Instead she stopped, stock-still in the middle of the room looking devastated. ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ she said, her eyes filling up with tears. She returned to the kitchen table, sitting down heavily. ‘I simply can’t imagine,’ she said, shaking her head.
Sam chose not to relinquish the safety of the kitchen counter quite yet, which she continued to lean on heavily. ‘You have children yourself,’ she acknowledged, in a misguided effort to turn the focus away from her own womb and towards Hattie’s.
‘Yes, three,’ said Hattie apologetically, quickly adding, ‘they’re a handful. Honestly. Be careful what you wish for,’ with a wincing s
mile that, fortunately, she barely allowed to materialise.
Sam sighed impatiently, recognising that other trait that so often followed when mothers stumbled uninvited into the labyrinth of Sam’s absent reproductive organs. City or countryside, she was beginning to understand that she couldn’t avoid this all too familiar pattern, though she calculated quickly that she could perhaps nip it in the bud before she spread it, like a virulent weed beneath her, wherever she trod. ‘You don’t need to apologise for your children. But I would really appreciate it if you didn’t make assumptions about what I should do with my body. One of the main reasons I left office life in London behind was my colleagues’ relentless obsession with my family planning. Or lack of it.’ Sam put a cup of tea in front of Hattie. She had presumptively added milk but didn’t offer sugar. She returned to the safety of the kitchen counter, liking its support and favouring its dependability which seemed far more appealing than sitting with Hattie at the table.
Hattie nodded but appeared not to be listening to Sam. Instead, she addressed the cake in front of her, turning a teaspoon in her fingers as she spoke. ‘I suppose you could adopt?’
Sam sighed again but this time with greater emphasis, a sigh that just about swallowed an oath. ‘Well, yes, I suppose I could, if that would make you happier.’ Sam spoke her words calmly, but now several notches louder, as though somebody out of sight had switched the volume up with a remote control. The increase in volume surprised Sam as much as it surprised Hattie. ‘But tell me, Hattie, I’m intrigued to understand why, after knowing me for such a very short time, why you are so determined for me to have a family?’ The rise in pitch betrayed the thundering chasm of emotion bubbling just below the surface as if Sam’s veins carried molten lava that might find their way to her mouth before erupting without mercy.
Growing Season Page 6