Growing Season

by Seni Glaister

  When he did surface, Sam was in the kitchen, cooking herself some breakfast. ‘Eggs?’ she asked, innocently.

  ‘No thanks,’ Danny replied patiently.

  ‘Fried eggs are so good,’ she said.

  ‘Er no,’ Danny said, smiling to himself and shaking his head, while taking a bowl out of the cupboard for his cereal, resigned to the inevitable routine.

  ‘Not poached, or boiled?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Or what about scrambled? Are you sure I can’t tempt you with some delicious scrambled eggs?’

  ‘Never gets old, does it?’ he said, pouring milk into the bowl.

  Sam laughed. ‘Not until you admit you don’t have an allergy,’ she said. She carried a pan of water to the sink and, having tipped it carefully out, was now looking out of the window, her hands on her hips in a pose Danny immediately recognised as dissatisfied.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked, joining her at the kitchen sink to rinse out his coffee cup.

  ‘Those bloody developers. They laid out the garden but all that green coming up in the beds? They’re weeds not plants. They could have at least planted some bulbs or something.’

  ‘They look very much like plants to me,’ said Danny, peering out of the window to examine the low carpet of green growth filling the beds on either side of the small lawn.

  ‘Well, I’m afraid they’re definitely weeds. I didn’t want to start on the garden as I wanted to see what we already had, but I don’t think there’s anything there at all. It’s fine, I’m not really worried, I’m just going to hoe and then plant. We’ll put in annuals to give us some colour immediately and then some spring flowering bulbs and hardy perennials in the autumn, so we’ve got something to look forward to next year.’

  Danny looked at his wife happily. ‘When did you learn to speak gardening?’

  She tossed her head impatiently. ‘I’ve always liked gardening. You know that, Danny. I would have gardened much sooner if I’d had more than a couple of window boxes to play with.’

  ‘I know you lasted a whole six weeks in a flower shop, but I didn’t know you knew the Latin. That’s a whole new level of gardening.’

  ‘I don’t know if the word perennial is Latin, it just means it comes back each year. But, still. I’m glad you’re impressed. I plan to get very good at this.’ Sam was glad Danny was impressed. There were very few areas where her knowledge was deeper than his and she was hoping to make gardening one of those areas where she shone, both in theory and in practice.

  ‘So,’ Danny said, still examining their garden with idle curiosity. ‘What exactly is the difference between a weed and a plant?’

  Sam was busying herself around the kitchen while she spoke. She felt competent and fluent and at home. ‘Technically nothing. A weed is just a plant in the wrong place. That said, there are some really invasive weeds you have to look out for. Knotweed, bindweed, that kind of thing. It’s really nasty stuff. Bindweed would cover most of this plot in a single season. If that takes hold, you might as well wave goodbye to any chance of ever having a garden.’

  Sam shrugged and turned to put the milk back in the fridge while Danny remained at the window. Sam was oblivious to the tensing of Danny’s shoulders, and with her back to him she also missed him clench and release both fists several times before burying his hands in his trouser pockets to control the compulsion.

  Danny tried to block the cacophony of thought as he studied the small plants through the window. They weren’t conscious thoughts, the musings or wonderings of an inquisitive mind. Rather they were hostile bombardments by individual words, swiftly followed by brutal images that were as real to him as the short grass outside. The lawn still showed traces of the outlines of turf squares, laid barely a month ago and still awaiting the warmth of early summer to really bed them in. These outlines were pleasing in their regularity and could be counted, which helped to calm him, but they were not as compelling as the noise in his head.

  Invasive, she’d said. He imagined the weeds growing at pace, stretching out in every direction and strangling first the fence before turning their attention to the house itself. He imagined the plants thrusting their tendrils into the small crevices in the brickwork and crushing the mortar to dust, letting the powdery residue crumble to the ground. He imagined the newest shoots reaching out claw-like, grasping the ironwork on the back of the house, the drainpipes popping from the wall like buttons from a tight shirt. He imagined the roof giving in to the weight of the boughs of the weeds.

  ‘Knotweed,’ she’d said. ‘Bindweed,’ she’d said. He didn’t know what either of these plants looked like, but he could imagine the damage they’d do. He suspected their thick sinuous stems were covered in tiny hairs, like the nettles he used to hate as a child. Plunging headfirst into those vivid memories of his childhood (tiny scars, barely remembered, prised open to become deep gashes of pain under scrutiny), he imagined those childhood nettles with stems as thick as his wrist and he imagined them now pushing their growing tips through the tiny gaps between the bricks and the windows, plunging the frames inwards and rushing towards him, a frothing surge of poisonous green.

  ‘Danny?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he said, quietly, his eyes still fixed on the flowerbeds.

  ‘I said, do you want toast?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, unenthusiastically, unable to tear his eyes away from the droning threat lurking in the garden.

  Wave goodbye, she’d said. He imagined the slow sad shake of the estate agent’s head as he declined to offer the house for sale. He imagined the bank’s letters piling up, fighting with the invasive plants for space on the doormat. He’d be stuck with this house, that’s for sure. And if he couldn’t sell this house, he’d lose the opportunity for the next house and the one after that. And all of those things were part of the plan. If he were to falter at the first hurdle, then he really might as well give up now.

  ‘No,’ he said, imagining Sam must have spoken again. ‘No to toast. I’m going out.’

  Sam watched Danny leave, puzzled by his sudden exit but she was fully committed to micro-managing his happiness, so was pleased to see him heading off with purpose. She had been worried he might feel a bit out of control without the bustle of a city backdrop but she watched him reverse the car out of the drive with confidence and he looked very much like a man with a mission which made her feel grateful.

  Sam waited for the car to disappear before heading out to the garden. She smiled as she knelt down to pull the weeds from the soil. They barely had roots, just little white threads like the ends of carrots and they left the earth with no resistance. She thought about Danny, her hard-working, capable husband, as he drove off to explore the neighbourhood for the first time. This is what she’d always wanted for him, somewhere he could properly switch off and live a life that didn’t have to shrink to the few centimetres of screen to become three dimensional to him. That world (the office, the deals, the politics of it all) fuelled him, she knew that, it was as important to him as the food she ate. But she wasn’t always convinced it was a healthy diet.

  Having cleared a small space of weeds, she stood and admired her work, looking around the perimeter of the lawn trying to imagine this garden in the summer, when the surrounding trees were all in full leaf and the flowerbeds were bursting with colour. She wondered what sort of gardener Danny might become in this space. It would be nice to see him with a bit of earth under his fingernails. He was so competent, so accomplished, but she suspected he suffered from his own worries from time to time and she felt that here in the countryside, he could diffuse those worries and fill his head with more practical concerns, the sort of concerns that might be fixed with a hammer and a nail. Everyone needed that, she reasoned. Everyone needed some utilitarian distractions to help them feel in control.

  Sam had sketched out a broad plan for the garden in her mind. Her initial disappointment was already being replaced by a wilful optimism. She had a completely blank canvas and could loo
k at the whole as a single artwork that she could complete, and it would all be her own. It was horribly dull now but with a couple of weeks of warmer weather the garden centres would be full of instant colour and she was committed to cheating this year with some bedding plants while she thought about what she might be capable of achieving for the long term.

  She was so happy in her work, weeding and humming to herself as she did so, that she was startled when she heard the sound of the car arriving back. She hurried out by the side path to greet Danny. By the time she had reached him he was already lugging a large box out of the car and he beamed happily at her as he set it on the ground.

  ‘What on earth have you been up to?’ she asked, delighted by his pleasure.

  He shook his head in mock despair. ‘You’ve lost me, I’m afraid. That’s it. I’m a goner.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Yup. You thought you were going to lose me to corporate life, didn’t you? That’s what you feared. Or as I got a bit older and fatter, to golf. But no, you’ve lost me anyway.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘To DIY! That store! What riches you’ve been keeping from me! I’ve never been anywhere like it. It’s a goldmine! The tools! There’s something for every imaginable project – there are scythes and shears and sledgehammers, mallets and maces. I can have my own jackhammer if I want. I barely knew where to start.’ He grinned at her as he set the box the right way up.

  ‘And you’re starting with?’ She eyed the box suspiciously.

  ‘A mower.’

  Sam put her head on one side, looking at the box.

  ‘Oh, no, not in here. This isn’t the mower. I’ve ordered it, they’ll deliver it next week. But I managed to pick up some basics.’ Danny reached into the car and dragged out two full carrier bags which he lifted to the ground and put next to the box.

  ‘What on earth have you got there, it looks like you’re waging war?’

  ‘Just the essentials.’ He tore at the top of the box and heaved out a large plastic contraption with a big water canister attached.

  ‘What on earth is that?’ asked Sam, genuinely puzzled.

  ‘It’s a pressure hose.’

  ‘And we need one of those, because?’

  ‘Look at this cobble,’ he said, stabbing at it with his toe. ‘They’ve done a nice job, granted, but each one of these are individual stones. Grass will grow up between them, moss will encroach, and before you know it, saplings will have seeded themselves and will be twisting their roots around our foundations.’

  Sam looked at the cobbled drive beneath her feet. The builders had done a good job – they could have chucked down a bit of tarmac but instead the stones were really nicely laid out and they stretched all the way from the lane to the garage, giving a generous apron on which you could park two cars side by side, with ease.

  ‘But there are no weeds here, Danny,’ said Sam with the slightest trace of concern in her voice.

  ‘And that’s the way I intend to keep it. Can’t be complacent, now.’

  Sam, realising this was not a battle she needed to concern herself with, laughed and headed inside. Before closing the front door, she paused to watch him as he attached the pressure hose to the tap by the garage and carefully unravelled an extension lead, walking it backwards and concentrating furiously as if laying dynamite. She was glad he had found a task to involve himself in, but equally, she couldn’t help wondering how she had managed to marry somebody so completely different to her. Her instinct was to plant and to grow and encourage some sort of natural chaos to spring from the garden, creating a wilderness that would reveal new splendours daily. His was to hold it all back.

  Chapter 20

  The weekend had passed in steady activity. Danny had waged battle with an as yet undeclared foe and had felt calmed by his pre-emptive strike. But stepping on to the train to mark the start of another week as a commuter reassured him. Standing on the platform, nodding to his fellow passengers, finding his seat and opening his laptop all contributed to the quiet knowledge that, amongst all of this change, he could find ways to corral the unfamiliar and break it, taming it to behave in a way he could manage.

  Arriving at the office, Danny walked up the three flights of stairs to his floor, taking two steps at a time and counting as he went. He put his head down to make the climb, and didn’t break his stride, matching each step with the rhythm of his steady tally. He was confident he wouldn’t meet anybody coming down the other direction, these were service stairs, concrete and uninviting, but he had recently discovered they were a viable alternative to the lift which had become intolerable to him recently due to the endless variables he had identified. If other people were as meticulous as he was, he might be able to work out which lift was best to use in the morning, but his peers’ arrivals were haphazard, anarchic even, and the lifts tore up and down spilling people out on their floors and paying no heed at all to the order in which they’d arrived. The stairs, on the other hand, were solid and reliable.

  Once he reached the third floor he paused to straighten his tie and smooth down his hair before pushing the heavy fire door open and emerging into a small lobby next to two unnecessary chairs and a large notice board. He ignored the posters and announcements, having never even considered there might be anything of interest to him and headed straight towards the small kitchen to make his tea as quickly as possible, hoping to escape to his desk before the arrival of the throng. There was one person in the kitchen already, which frustrated him, as he really liked to be first, but she had her back to him and seemed preoccupied with own preparations, so he took his cup from his bag and set to work as briskly and quietly as he could.

  The woman immediately turned around and her face lit up with a bright smile.

  ‘Morning there, Danny. I didn’t hear you come in.’

  ‘Morning, Zoe,’ he said, warmly. He liked Zoe, she was straightforward and easy to work with. Other colleagues confused her directness with abruptness or aloofness but Danny considered her something of a kindred spirit.

  ‘You’ve changed your hair,’ he said. ‘I didn’t recognise you from behind.’

  She reached a hand up to her hair and smoothed it down, nervously.

  ‘Well observed, Danny. It’s a new colour. Do you like it?’

  He took a step back as if to observe her more closely and tilted his head to the side while he examined this question seriously. ‘Yes, yes I do. It’s lighter, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. But don’t get attached to it. It’ll change again soon.’

  ‘It will? Don’t you like it?’

  ‘I like it, but I’ve recently begun to work with a therapist to see if I can become a bit more adaptable. She’s identified a few issues that she believes makes it hard for me to navigate a workplace like this.’ Zoe shrugged emphatically. ‘She thinks I am “uncompromising” apparently and believes I can help accept change in others if I get used to change in myself. So, consider my new hair colour my homework.’

  Zoe’s conversation was light and bright but Danny was fascinated by Zoe’s revelations. He found the idea of therapy strangely alluring but the idea of undergoing any for himself appalled him. To accept that he needed help would mean either admitting his fallibility to his wife or lying to her yet again. Neither of which he was prepared to do. Being married to a strong, adept woman was both a blessing and a burden. And, besides, allowing somebody to poke around inside his head, possibly messing up the neatly ordered files, just felt like opening a can of worms.

  ‘How many changes will you make, and how often?’ he asked, assessing Zoe’s hair.

  Zoe laughed, recognising herself in Danny’s questioning. ‘Now that is exactly the sort of detail that I tried to pin down myself. Frankly, she has been a little vague on the matter and rejected my proposal to lock down a schedule out of hand. But it seems that she has recommended a crash course of big noticeable changes each week to get used to people’s comments and then a series of minor
ones to keep myself flexible thereafter. It all seems a bit nebulous to me. But still, here I go, following another course of action blindly. But thanks for noticing, Danny, you’re one of the first to comment, so consider yourself a pioneer in my therapeutic journey.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Danny, genuinely. He fished the teabag out of his cup, and squeezed it against the side before throwing it in the bin. He replaced the lid on the cup and turned to leave.

  ‘I’ll see you at Peter’s barbecue at the weekend,’ said Zoe as he left. ‘Look out for the redhead!’

  Danny began to laugh but turned back to Zoe sharply. ‘When’s Peter’s barbecue?’

  ‘This Saturday, isn’t it? You are invited, aren’t you? I haven’t put my foot in it? You’ve definitely been before. I’ve seen you there. We’ve chatted.’ Zoe looked stricken by the thought that she might have been insensitive to somebody she considered a fellow outlander.

  ‘This Saturday? No. No, I haven’t been invited actually. No harm done,’ he added when he saw the confusion on Zoe’s face. ‘I’ve moved away from London so I probably wouldn’t have been able to make the trip back into town at the weekend anyway.’

  ‘Oh, that’s probably why you weren’t invited,’ said Zoe, relieved.

  ‘Probably,’ said Danny, who had already set off towards his desk.

  He walked the long way around, deliberately passing Peter’s desk. Having just arrived, his colleague put his coffee down to shrug off his jacket.

  ‘Morning, Peter,’ said Danny quite confidently, as he passed.

  Peter nodded briefly, leaning down busily to log on before he’d even sat down. As Danny walked on, he reflected on that small exchange, categorising it in his mind as uneasy. He wasn’t rude or dismissive, but he looked distracted and, Danny wondered, perhaps even embarrassed.