Guerillas In Our Midst

by Claire Peate

  “Glad you came?” Guy leant next to me as we waited our turn near the van that was surrounded by famished and exhausted looking guerrilla gardeners.

  “Oh I—” Not waiting for my answer he pulled me roughly to him and began kissing me, full on the mouth.

  “Put her down, Newhouse.” A man had come over and as Guy moved away I hastily tried to regain some composure. Which was a completely impossible task as I had the grown-up equivalent of an It’s Christmas! expression on my face.

  The crowd around the cakes dissipated and I took a paper cup of tea and an apple muffin while Guy had a chocolate slice.

  “Anja is an amazing cook,” Guy said with his mouth full of the evidence. “She’s the reason V-2 does so well: no customer can resist her cooking.”

  “So it’s not my charm then Guy?” Neil asked archly.

  Before he could answer Guy was approached by another gardener who had dropped what looked like a bucket of rubble behind the van. “That’s the last of the clearance, Guy. We’re ready for compost, then planting, and you’re needed over by the sacks. Sorry, can you spare him?” he said to me.

  “Of course,” I replied, magnanimously.

  Guy made to go but halted and turned back. “Do you know what you’re supposed to be doing now the clearance has finished, Edda?”

  “Not as such.” I said, determined this time actually to listen to what he had to say.

  He strode off and returned with plans for the dig, which he spread on the bonnet of the van. Then, by the light of a torch I made out a long list of actions and the assigned individuals. All actions had times set against them: ground clearance and preparation to 2.30am. “We’re behind schedule, aren’t we?”

  “We can make it up,” Guy said. “There are more people working the site than we’d originally planned: planting time should be shorter. We just weren’t prepared for the amount of clearance needed, but that’s the way it goes. OK, you’re working with me putting the oak saplings in at the back of the site.”

  Ten minutes later and I realised that they were not saplings. It took all my strength to heft just one of the things – the word sapling really did nothing to convey the huge, heavy-treeness of them. Guy, however, seemingly effortlessly managed two in one go. I dragged mine artlessly up the slope, stumbling as it whipped me in the face with its branches. I tried to peer through the leaves to see how Guy was carrying his – there must be some sort of technique that I definitely hadn’t mastered – but even when I attempted to copy what he was doing it was impossible to negotiate the slope, carry the tree and check out Guy. So I concentrated on doing the first two as well as I could. At the top where the slope got steeper, I nearly toppled backwards as a branch slapped me hard across the forehead and I lost my footing.

  “Got you!” Guy encircled me and pulled me upright, stopping me tumbling to a messy end on a Brockley pavement.

  “Thanks.”

  “Any time.” He shot me a grin and slowly, teasingly slowly, withdrew his hand from my waist. I met his eyes and managed a smile before returning to my work. Outwardly cool, inwardly burning up with lust and embarrassment and not knowing quite what the hell to do about it. Hopefully, I thought, as I wobbled to the railings to prop up my tree, hopefully I just looked cool and unruffled.

  If weeding and trowelling hurt, digging in saplings really hurt. My blistered hands bled, my arms were scratched and I was constantly getting hit in the face by unseen twiggy branches because it was so damn dark. Any pleasure I might have had from working with Guy was ruined by the sheer hell of the task in hand. By 4am I hated almost everything: the trees, the soil, the slope and the complete impossibility of gardening in the dark. Digging a site with trees and giant shrubs was a completely different experience to messing around in a skip with geraniums, topsoil and cheap alcohol. Nevertheless when anyone asked how I was doing on my first dig I was doing fine and really enjoying it. It wouldn’t do to moan.

  Working in silence, Guy was engrossed in measuring, digging and planting, while I focused on not grunting while I hefted the trees and dug the holes. I was deep in the task when Guy leant over and hissed, “He’s here.”

  I stood up, stretching and aching, and followed his line of sight, down to the pavement below. A giant seventies black limo had smoothly pulled up alongside the van.

  Eustace Fox, in the familiar long black trench coat, stepped out of the car, his ruddy round face turned orange from the distant street lights. However benevolent and philanthropic I knew him to be I couldn’t help feeling a sense of dread at the sight of him in that get-up. He was standing with his back to the dig site and looking at Mr Iqbal’s Mini Mart, pointing something out to Peter Shaw, the Head of Planning at the Council, who had also emerged from the car.

  “What’s Eustace doing?” I whispered to Guy. “Why is he so interested in the Mini Mart?”

  “God only knows. Eust has his fingers in a number of pies.”

  I was going to ask more about the fingers in pies comment but decided against it, seeing Guy’s face knotted in a frown. “Do you think he’ll be happy with what he sees here?” I whispered to Guy who was now busy collecting up the empty tree pots to take down to the van.

  “I’d better find out,” he muttered, “I’m going down.”

  It was amazing, absolutely amazing what we had achieved in four hours. All the frustration and anger and general dissatisfaction over the dig had vanished and I stood looking up at the night’s work with a feeling of awe and pride. In the lightening sky I could clearly make out that the former scraggy wasteland approaching Brockley Station had been transformed into a garden of greens and purples with rich black soil showing in-between. The station slope was beautiful and stylish and, for the first time ever, it was clean and litter free. The volunteers were packing away now, bringing back the spades and trowels and empty containers, while others quietly brushed the spilt soil from the pavement and lugged the sacks of waste into the van. One or two gardeners were litter picking down the road. I laid my tools in the cage inside the van.

  “’ere!” Jake thrust a five litre watering can into my hands, “Water. We’re off-site in ten.”

  “Where’s Eustace?” I asked.

  “’e’s gone.”

  I waited for a moment to see if there was going to be any more of an explanation. But no, there was not. This was Jake, after all.

  For what felt like the millionth time that night I headed up the slope to the oaks, stumbling under the weight of the watering can and stupefied by lack of sleep. Everyone around me was watering, the wet soil tang mixing with the scent of the lavender, which reminded me of home. My lovely home of Extreme Lavender with its lovely hot shower and lovely, lovely big bed.

  “I have to go,” Guy appeared at my side, one hand resting gently on the nape of my neck. “I’ll see you soon, Edda.”

  This time there was no kiss from him and I didn’t have the confidence to take the lead and kiss him. I’m sure Che Guevara would have had the confidence to – if he’d wanted to, that is – but at that time in the morning after hours of digging I was utterly numb and exhausted. Horribly disappointed, I watched Guy walk away from me, down the road, shaking hands with the gardeners as he passed and then disappearing down Geoffrey Road to wherever he lived.

  I milled around dejectedly, wondering what the protocol was for leaving the site, but there didn’t appear to be one. Everyone was drifting off and so, with a wave to Neil and Anja, I started my short, weary walk home down the empty street.

  Thirteen

  Beth and I had spent an hour in V-2 with very little baby-talk and a great deal of me talking about guerrilla gardening. For once, Beth acknowledged that my life was at least as interesting as hers: new secret society, new lodger, kissing artists … things were moving on in a glossy-magazine-approved manner. She was, however, still reeling from the fact that I hadn’t asked her to help me choose my lodger and, for the moment, that was all she wanted to talk about.

  “I cannot believe,”
said Beth, between mouthfuls of ciabatta, “that you even listened to this Amanda person when it came to finding a tenant. Honestly, she sounds absolutely dreadful. I know you said she’d be upset if you told her not to do it, but honestly my lovely, what kind of advice would someone like her be able to give? You really should have had me with you honey.”

  “That’s unfair.” I said, “Amanda’s fine, really. I just painted a bad picture of her. Talking of painting pictures, Guy—”

  “But, for goodness sake,” Beth continued, unabated, “I thought you said this Amanda person always has her bra on show in the office. What kind of woman flaunts their bra at the office?” Beth was eating so eagerly I felt almost disgusted watching her, as she spat out the bread in her bid to talk. To say she was eating for two was an understatement. “I mean what did she wear when she helped you interview? Tassels?”

  “Well, the house is a former brothel.” I said, “It would have been fitting.”

  Beth pushed a sausage roll into her mouth. “Do you still have the pole in your cellar? The one you thought was scaffolding?” She snorted flaky pastry over me and the table.

  “Yes.” I dusted myself down. “To be honest I just can’t bear to touch it. I should have put it in the skip outside the front of the house while it was still there. We could have put some climbing roses up it.”

  “Anyway, getting back to the point, Eds, you made a big mistake using your teenage friend, in my opinion: I don’t know what made you do it, darling. I could have helped you, but,” she sighed, “you didn’t want me.” Her voice wobbled slightly and a very small part of me thought HA! Let her be the one left behind for a change. Let her know how it feels. But outwardly I did the dutiful friend thing and squeezed her knee.

  “It’s done now, anyway. And the bloke we chose seems fine. Really nice.”

  “ ‘Nice’?” Beth emptied the crisps into her mouth. “What does nice mean?”

  “Nice. I don’t know. Pleasant. And other people think so too – I got a second opinion.”

  “Good girl! Who from?”

  “Babs.”

  “Who?” Beth said and then her face fell as it dawned on her. “Babs? Babs! You got the old hag from next door to give her opinion on your new lodger?”

  “She’s not a hag. Beth you’re being really mean about my…”

  Oh God.

  Beth nearly choked. “Are you about to say ‘friends’?” she gaped. “Were you going to say I was being mean about your friends?”

  “No. Not at all. Nope. No.”

  But Beth wasn’t to be convinced. “You are! You’re friends with Miss Pants-on-Show Teenager and your White Trash Neighbour.”

  The red mist descended. “STOP BEING SO BLOODY MEAN!” several people looked up. Including Beth.

  We stared at each other across the food-covered table.

  “Sorry.” Beth broke the silence. “You’re absolutely right. But they’re not your real friends are they?”

  “No. No I just … I seem to be with them a lot more, now. And they’re OK. Really. Babs makes me laugh – oh come on, she’s harmless enough.” I was on the brink of telling her about the belly dancing kit, but then decided not to: it wouldn’t endear Babs to Beth.

  “Well, it’s good you’re out and about meeting people,” Beth said breezily, both of us ignoring the enormous elephant in the room that was her complete and utter abandonment of me. “Anyway, this Amanda person— ”

  “You could just call her Amanda,” I said quietly.

  “So she based the decision about who should be your tenant solely on the fact that this silver fox father of his is a famous actor?”

  “He is quite famous. In fact, I’d say he’s very famous.”

  “But my point is, Eds,” more ciabatta came my way, “you’re not going to be living with the famous father are you?”

  “No. But look – there were loads of people we interviewed who would have been fine, so it was a relief just to get the decision made for me. There needed to be some grounds for a choice between all the fine people and Amanda just happened to make it on the basis of the really very handsome and famous father.”

  “But the son’s not handsome?”

  “No. But like I said on the phone – he’s nice. He’s fine. He’ll pay the bills and keep the house tidy, probably, and that’s what I want.”

  “Sounds like a marriage of convenience.”

  “Well I’m not marrying him, am I? I’m hardly going to want some Heathcliffe-style fiery, passionate and broody lodger. I’ll save that for my boyfriend.”

  Beth looked at me. “Have you?” she said. “Have you got a boyfriend? Are you seeing that guy from the secret society then?”

  “He’s called Guy.”

  “I know that. Are you and he … are you?” She was so shocked she’d actually paused in her eating.

  “No. Well, I don’t know what we are. We’re something. I think.” And then I took her through what had happened so far. She listened in, hungrily, only breaking in to ask questions such as, “What sort of a kiss?” or “What sort of an artist is he? Is he any good?”

  Beth looked appalled at my answer. “You mean you haven’t Googled him? Edda! Like how 1990 are you? If he’s a famous artist he’ll be all over the web.”

  “What do you mean ‘How 1990 am I?’ Now you sound like Amanda. Like that Amanda.”

  “Well, she seems like a perfectly sensible person then if that’s the kind of thing she would say. Do you want me to be more like her? Would that make you love me more? Would you invite me to interview your lodgers if I was more like her?” she said, with a hint of a smile.

  I shrugged and played along. “Maybe. Maybe I would love you more if you were like Amanda.”

  “So do you want me to get my enormous mummy knickers out like that Amanda gets her knickers out?” she was struggling to suppress her grin. “Is that what I should do to be your best friend now? I warn you they’re beige and elasticated every which way.”

  I said no, she should definitely not get her knickers out.

  But she did anyway.

  There was a billow of maternity dress, the table rocked and the couple next to us gasped as I squealed out, “Jesus Christ, Beth, they’re enormous!”

  And in a flash I had my old best friend back again, just for a minute.

  “Oh my God!” she rearranged her clothes and wiped the tears out of her eyes. “Oh, Eds! I shouldn’t be laughing so much! It can harm the baby.” And my old best friend left as soon as she’d arrived.

  We walked from V-2, past Fox Estates and on towards Beth’s flat – I was going to walk her home just in case she went into labour on the streets of Brockley. Very early.

  “Oh, bloody hell!” Beth said. We had stopped outside my house and I had opened the gate into the year 1588. “What the fuck, Edda?” she said and then put her hands on either side of her bump to shield the baby’s ears from the expletive. She walked the gravel path and then took a seat on the stone bench that had so recently been taken up with the handsome artist. “This isn’t new though, is it?” she said, running a hand along its freshly cleaned surface. “Don’t I remember this bench? Didn’t I … didn’t I fall asleep once and spend an entire night stretched out on it after the party in Blackheath when we first moved into London?”

  “That’s the one! I found it under brambles when I cut the garden down.”

  “Hmm. You know Eds it’s a bit freaky isn’t it, this guerrilla gardening thing. Breaking into front gardens and imposing your own style onto someone else. I mean OK so your garden was dreadful, but I guess some people might not like what it is now …”

  “We don’t go into gardens. We do shared areas like the approach to the station that I showed you before we went to V-2.”

  “Ye-es. It was beautiful and I guess that’s good.” She mused. “But this. This is a bit freaky. Do you actually like this, hon?”

  “I don’t know. I think so. I mean it’s very kind of them to have done it for me. It was
done with the best intentions. Do I like it?”

  “I don’t think you do, hon. And I’m not convinced either,” Beth said. “I’m actually thinking it’s quite wrong. I mean – who tells the guerrilla gardeners what the people of Brockley actually want? Do you go out there and do covert market research before you lift the trowel? Do you hand out questionnaires asking for shrub preference and overall satisfaction with the borders?”

  “Oh come on you’re as bad as Babs, with all the doom and gloom mongering,” I said, quietly, just in case the lady herself was listening.

  “Babs knows about the secret society?” Beth whispered, also looking over at Babs’ house.

  “No. But she talks to me about Eustace Fox: you know she rates him as quite the criminal. She says the suited ones are the ones you have to worry about.”

  “Pah!” Beth waved it away, “The old biddy only says that because her family form the entire criminal underclass of South East London. Is her son – grandson – still in prison? What’s his name?”

  “Tyrone? No – he’s out now.” I said. “But maybe I should be a bit more wary of the secret society: if you think it’s dodgy and Babs thinks its leader is crooked.”

  “Well don’t take our words for it,” Beth stood up, “Why not get another opinion from your pal Amanda? What does she think?”

  “Meany.” I followed her to the gate. “Can’t I convince you to stay for dinner?”

  “Nope. Sorry darling. Out with parents-to-be friends later. Café Rouge over in Greenwich: should be fun. Bye, darling.” She leant over her bump and plonked a kiss on my cheek. I could feel her suddenly tense as she pulled away. And then I realised why.

  “Hi,” she mumbled across the garden.