The Words Shimmer

by Jenn Matthews

  “That’s right.”

  “And we need to think about how we can use the space to make money. Things we could grow and then sell on, maybe?”

  “I’ve literally no ideas.” Ruby sounded so dejected that Mel stepped up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s okay. I’ll help you plan it out.”

  Ruby’s smile was warm. “Then what d’you suggest, Ms Titchmarsh?”

  After rolling her eyes and glancing about again, Mel pointed to the greenhouse. “Well, that thing needs a good clean. Hot soap and water, inside and out.” She considered the patches of ground and folded her arms across her chest. “Onions and potatoes are easy to grow outside, and they show two different parts of a plant that can be eaten. Maybe lettuce too; that’s three.”

  “Yep, okay.”

  “Tomatoes are a must, of course.” Mel pouted in thought and nodded. “And maybe peppers. What about some flowers?”

  “Oh, that would be lovely.”

  “Marigolds, then, definitely. They go well with tomatoes and keep the aphids off them. Sunflowers are very popular with kids. You could have a competition to see who can grow the tallest one.”

  “Good idea.”

  “You could harvest some of the produce you’ve grown and the kids’ parents can come and sample some at the party.”

  When Mel turned back to Ruby after looking around her, Ruby was grinning. Ruby sidled up beside her, reached up to clear the few inches that separated their heights, and kissed her cheek. When she pulled back, her cheeks were pink.

  “It all sounds ever so complicated.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  Ruby’s eyebrow rose. “Promise?”

  Mel nodded, stuffing her hands into her trouser pockets.

  “Thank you,” Ruby replied, her voice soft.

  Mel held out her hands in a shrug that she hoped said ‘it’s fine’ before returning her hands to her pockets.

  “So,” Ruby said as they made their way to the bench that Mel had vacated minutes before, “you said you learned to garden from your dad.”

  “That’s right.” Mel rubbed both her knees, relishing the fact that she could do that now. It felt strange but wonderful. “He’s in a home now, but he still helps out with the garden there.”

  “What sort of things did he grow?”

  “Everything, pretty much, but mostly tomatoes. I don’t know a variety he hadn’t tried.”

  Ruby looked at her hands with wide eyes. “I wasn’t aware tomatoes came in different varieties.” She lifted her head. “Apart from cherry and… normal.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “I suppose there are different types of onions and potatoes too, and peppers?”

  “I’m wondering whether we should do some hot ones for the kids; see what they think of the taste.”

  Ruby screwed up her face, which made Mel chuckle. “Sounds like child abuse to me.”

  “Hmm.” Mel touched her chin and leant her elbow on the table part of the picnic bench. “Maybe we get the parents to do it.”

  “So why is your dad in a home?” Ruby’s voice was gentle, and Mel wasn’t surprised when her hand made its way to Mel’s arm.

  “Dementia.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “He’s an amazing man, and yes, you’re right, it really is sad.”

  “What did he do, other than gardening?”

  Mel looked out to the shed, the image of her father coming out of one very much like it and waving to her, shimmering in front of her eyes. A pale pink rose, freshly cut for her mother. “He was a graphic designer for a firm that made all sorts. Mechanical appliances, mostly, but he ended up designing some car parts and various toys.”

  “What a great job,” Ruby said. “He sounds like he’s an intelligent man.”

  Mel was grateful for the prolonged contact of Ruby’s hand on her arm but also for the way Ruby was talking about her father in the present tense. She nodded. “He is. Still plays the organ for the other residents. I don’t think he’ll forget how to do that until he’s forgotten everything else.”

  “Muscle memory, maybe.” Ruby slid her palm up and down Mel’s arm, which tingled a bit under her touch.

  “So, come on you.” Mel slapped her thighs and then gestured around the garden. “When are we to begin?”

  Ruby’s face lit up, and she laughed. “Um, are you free next Wednesday afternoon?”

  “Operation Garden Clean Up shall commence.”

  A week later, Ruby was dressed in waterproof trousers, a long-sleeved T-shirt she didn’t mind getting dirty, and wellington boots. She had an entire bottle of green washing-up liquid, two buckets, two brushes, and two cloths. Both buckets were full to the brim with warm water. I’m not using cold; my hands will freeze.

  The day was bright but chilly, it still being January, and she hoped the students would finish their lunches and dissipate before their task began. She didn’t fancy being stared at while she washed the greenhouse and got water all down her top. She’d attached some brightly coloured posters announcing the project and what it was in aid of, to every wall in the university, and around the garden too.

  When one o’clock rolled around, Mel emerged from the paramedic science block, walking boots on her feet and rubbing her hands together in glee and motivation. “I saw the event Chloe created on Facebook.” Mel gave her a thumbs up.

  “I hope you… accepted it, or whatever the phrase is.”

  “Of course. Any luck on finding some free bits for the tombola?”

  “Actually, yes. Most of the supermarkets were reasonably helpful. Got a voucher for a massage from that beauty place on the high street. And a few toys—they’ll go down well with the kids.”

  “Definitely. Well done.”

  Ruby’s stomach tingled. “So, where do we start?” she asked, setting one of the buckets down by Mel’s feet.

  “What’s the shed like?”

  Ruby wrinkled her nose. “Full of arachnids.”

  “I’ll tackle that, then. You start on the inside of the greenhouse.”

  A nod from the both of them, and they set to work. Ruby cleared the greenhouse of debris and old plant pots first, lugging out a huge bag of mouldy compost. She was about to haul it over to the bin bags she’d pilfered from the domestic staff, but Mel stuck her head out of the shed.

  “Throw it on the veg patch,” she suggested, pointing to one of the oblong areas of muck.

  “Really?”

  “Yup.”

  “But it’s mouldy.”

  “But still full of nutrients.”

  Ruby stared at it, shrugged, then nearly tripped over her own feet as she slid the bag over and upended it on the clay-filled earth. Even mouldy compost looked browner and healthier than the grey-orange stuff that covered the patch. Okay, point taken.

  She threw all the pots away, bar one: a blue ceramic thing with a shiny outside and a big hole in the bottom. That’s far too pretty to throw in the bin. She set that by the plastic chairs on the patio and went inside the now empty greenhouse to begin soaping up the glass walls.

  The work was tiring but exhilarating. I do very little physical work these days. Bed baths once a month for a selection of patients, but apart from that it’s mostly talking to people and teaching. She loved walking her dog; the parks around where she and her daughters lived were pretty but very much in the city. She liked the beach and rolling fields. Woodlands and hilltops and fresh air. I miss the Pennines, and the farms of Yorkshire.

  This was almost fresh. Now that she’d got rid of most of the things causing the smell, all she could detect was the faint whiff of detergent and fresh earth. A worm wiggled its way over the concrete squares that ran up the middle of the greenhouse. She didn’t want to touch it, but she did wait until it was out of harm’s way
before she walked to the end of the greenhouse and began washing the steepled roof. She knew her basic natural history—worms made the ground nice.

  She glanced over to the shed and watched as Mel carried tools and large bins out of it so that she could clean inside. The strength in her arms was noticeable, the muscles taught and prominent under her T-shirt. Faint freckles dusted her arms right down to her wrists, where long fingers grasped a huge bin, before she heaved it over the ground towards the rest of the salvaged items.

  Ruby blinked. I’m staring. She wiped her soapy hands on a spare, clean rag. Then, the perspiration beginning to drip down her back, she gathered her thick hair into a loose twist and secured it with a hair bobble to keep it off her neck. The cool air of the January afternoon swept past her exposed skin, and she sighed.

  When she looked up, Mel was looking at her in a thoughtful kind of way. Ruby offered her a small wave and scrubbed hard at a particularly stubborn streak of muck that she didn’t care to identify.

  Once the inside was finished, Ruby emerged from the greenhouse and swiped at her forehead. “Fancy a coffee?” she called, and Mel’s head poked out from the shed.

  “Good timing; I’m just done in here.” Mel stepped out and held up a hand. “Sparkly clean.”

  Ruby didn’t need to look inside the shed to check, so she sauntered across Mel’s path towards her office. As she passed her, Mel caught her arm and pointed to her own cheek. Ruby stopped walking.

  “You’ve got some kind of crap…” Mel swiped Ruby’s face and then held her fingers out to show Ruby the bubbly mud.

  Ruby put a hand to her face, her cheeks burning but not unpleasantly. “I’ll just go… make coffee. I’ll bring them out.” Mel nodded, and Ruby strode into the building, down the corridor, and into her office.

  As the kettle boiled, Ruby sat in her office chair and took out her phone to use the camera to check her face. Just as Mel had indicated, there was mud smeared across her skin, so she wet a tissue and rubbed it clean. She scratched the back of her neck and chose to distract herself by checking emails. It didn’t work. The memory of Mel’s touch on her face hadn’t been washed away by the tissue, and she wasn’t quite ready to ponder over the reason just yet.

  The click of the kettle broke her out of her non-reverie, and she poured the coffees into large mugs before carrying them back to their little garden area.

  Mel was already seated at the plastic table, her feet propped up on one of the chairs. Ruby set the mugs down and indicated which coffee was Mel’s. Mel’s smile was grateful, and she let out a huge sigh as she leant back in her seat.

  Ruby frowned at the walking boots making smears of mud on the plastic chair as she sat in her own, carefully crossing her legs and making sure her wellies were nowhere near the white plastic.

  “What?” Mel said, obviously trying not to grin. “I’m supposed to keep it elevated.”

  “Like bugger you are,” Ruby teased, but she moved her gaze deliberately from the mud smears and back to Mel’s face. She had dirt on her chin and a happy look in her eyes. “You’re having fun.”

  “I am,” Mel replied, pushing up her shoulders as the sun gleamed off her skin. She drank her coffee and hummed her appreciation. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. That’s the deal: you help me in this little endeavour, and I provide coffee.”

  “Sounds fair to me.”

  “So what’s next?”

  “Post-coffee break? I suggest we wash the outside of the greenhouse. Need to make sure as much light as possible can get inside, if we’re to grow things in there.”

  “What will we be growing inside?”

  Mel indicated the glass house with her finger. “Ah, that is where we shall start things off. All the flowers, tomatoes, and peppers.”

  “Not the rest of the veg?”

  “Nope. You plant potatoes where they are to be harvested. Same with onions. They don’t like to be moved.”

  “Right.” Ruby looked over at the three plots they had. “Do we need to do anything with them?”

  “Next week I’ll get some wood from the recycling project and we can line them. And I have a friend who has some manure doing nothing.”

  “Manure?”

  “Yup.”

  “Manure as in… poo?” Ruby’s face must have been a picture, because Mel laughed, her head thrown back.

  “Exactly. You never heard of that before?” Mel’s voice was incredulous.

  “Of course I have.”

  “But?”

  Ruby sighed. “I thought that was some sort of old wives’ tale or something.”

  Mel smirked. “No such luck, my dear sheltered friend. Poo is essential for healthy crops.”

  Ruby looked into her half-empty coffee mug and placed it decisively down on the plastic table. Suddenly, she didn’t really feel like drinking it.

  “It’s just horse manure. Maybe a bit of chicken thrown in, if we’re lucky.” Mel drained her coffee and set her mug down too. “Don’t worry, I’ll be bringing it in my car.”

  “You certainly will be,” Ruby replied, horrified by the notion that her Mini Cooper could contain anything that had come out of the back of an animal. I vacuum it after each time Barney travels in the boot.

  Mel laughed again. “We’ll get it all ready for the seed potatoes. I assume you have a budget?”

  “Two hundred quid.”

  “Plenty. We’ll get all the pots, some seed compost, all the seeds, seed potatoes, and onion sets for half of that easily.”

  “I don’t have to spend the entire lot, I don’t think.”

  Coffees finished, they emptied and refilled their buckets with extra washing-up liquid and started one at either side of the greenhouse. They washed the outside panes of glass, scrubbing gently where they met the metal framework of the greenhouse. When they came together around the front, Ruby accidentally dropped her cloth into her bucket, causing a plopping noise and a bunch of bubbles to fly out and hit Mel on the leg.

  Ruby stared in horror at her and was just about to apologise when Mel reached into her own bucket, pulled out a handful of bubbles, and smeared them over Ruby’s shoulder.

  Ruby looked incredulously at the chuckling woman in front of her and could do nothing but retaliate. Another handful of bubbles landed smack bang in the middle of Mel’s T-shirt, right between her breasts.

  It was on.

  Mel, grinning evilly, gathered another handful and followed as Ruby backed away, placing the bubbles on top of her head.

  The bubbles were cold even though steam still rose from their buckets. The fight that ensued was contested with laughter, threats of grievous bodily harm, and Mel getting the upper hand and adorning the entirety of Ruby’s face and head in grubby bubbles. Not to be outdone, however, Ruby fought her corner, smacking soapy water wherever she could on Mel’s taller frame.

  Giggles and shouts from both of them echoed across the garden patch, and Ruby was inordinately pleased no one came to see what on earth was going on.

  In the end, they quietened, hanging off one another and panting. Mel was the first to shiver, and Ruby rubbed the bubbles from Mel’s arms, admiring the orange freckles up close as she did so. She looks like she’s dusted with cinnamon.

  Mel’s eyes continued to laugh with her. They clutched each other with hands on shoulders and smiled through parted lips, their breath swirling upwards in clouds of hilarity.

  “I do not approve of foam parties,” Ruby said once they both had calmed down.

  “Really? Could have fooled me.”

  Grinning, Ruby patted Mel’s shoulder. “Well, I think the greenhouse is pretty much clean.”

  “Very sparkly.” Mel let go of Ruby to take her bucket and drain it over one of the veg patches.

  Ruby followed suit, feeling the loss of Mel’s hands on her skin like the chilly bree
ze that was drying out the greenhouse. Mel hooked up the hose to the external tap and began to spray the bubbly water from the glass panes, while Ruby found an old patio brush and swept any extra muck from the concrete path inside the greenhouse, onto the earthy sides. Mel sprayed the glass right by Ruby’s face as she knelt to pick up a few twigs, and Ruby stuck her tongue out at her, immediately feeling her face warm at the childish expression.

  Collecting up their tools and placing them back into the shed, they made plans to go to the garden centre. “The kids arrive on the second of March.”

  “Plenty of time.” Mel stretched her arms up over her head and backwards, and the pops of her shoulders were audible. “And a perfect time for planting seeds.”

  Ruby looked over towards the now neat and tidy greenhouse and felt a sense of pride warm her. The warmth intensified when she looked back at Mel. “Thank you for all your help.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  Chapter 10

  Their lunchtime meet-ups continued, usually followed by a quick walk around the garden area and a chat about their plans. Ruby loved to watch Mel as her face lit up, her eyes sparkled, and her hand gestures became emphatic. Passion poured from Mel like liquid honey, and the limp in her stride that lingered from her injury seemed to melt away once she got going.

  They enjoyed sitting in the cold air with coffee at their plastic table and chair assortment, chatting about this and that. Ruby finally asked Mel how she had actually sustained her broken leg. “You didn’t save a puppy from a burning building, did you?”

  Mel chuckled. “No. Nothing quite so dramatic.” Her fingers toyed with the end of her ponytail, and her cheeks pinked slightly. “I… rode my bike into a park bench.”

  “You did not!” Ruby knew her mouth was hanging open but couldn’t imagine a more suitable reaction.

  “Yep.” Rubbing the back of her neck, Mel ducked and tried to hide her face. “’Fraid so.”

  Once Ruby was sure her surprise had continued for long enough, she closed her mouth and stifled her laughter. Head tilted to one side, she lifted her coffee. “Would you say you were a bit accident prone?” Ruby asked, her glasses steaming up slightly as she sipped.