by Claire Peate
“And your front garden looks like a National Trust garden: it’s immaculate. I was talking to Babs—”
“Well, you shouldn’t go listening to Babs! Honestly!”
“Oh come on, she’s a treasure! Anyway, Babs said that one night your garden was a wasteland and then by the next morning it was completely transformed. Overnight: under cover of darkness. So you got the guerrilla gardeners to work for you too.”
“Babs called my front garden a wasteland?”
“No.” Robert sipped his wine. “If I remember rightly, I think she called your front garden a disgrace.”
“Oh.” I said. “Oh. Nice.”
“Well? Am I right?” Robert looked at me expectantly.
“No you’re not! It was just a bit overgrown that was all.”
“I mean about the guerrilla gardening?”
“Yes, of course you’re right.” I sighed and tapped the table, irritated that I’d been so easy to read. I was rubbish at being in a secret society: I would have got thrown out of the Famous Five by the first book. I wouldn’t even have made it on to Kirrin Island…
“And you know your house used to be a brothel?” Robert added.
“Yes, yes, yes. I know.” I said, giving in to irritation that someone like Babs had dissed my garden when her paintwork was shocking. And irritated that she told Robert about my house once being a brothel. When I’d asked her not to.
There was a hand on my hand. “Hey,” Robert was leaning forward. “That’s cool.”
“It’s—”
“It’s cool. You’re cool. You’re a guerrilla gardener. Your house used to be knocking shop. How edgy are you?”
I gazed into my wine glass. “Maybe,” I conceded. I was certainly closer to Robert’s vision of me than the fiery militant Highlander vision of me that Guy imagined.
“No you are. You’re very Brockley. You’re posh yet you live in South London. Your house is great but it used to be a brothel. You guerrilla garden but you also,” he leant right in to me, “assist Da Notoriously Bad Baron with his graffiti.”
“It’s getting better.”
“It is. Definitely. Thanks to your dexterity with the craft knife.”
“Well, yes, perhaps I am cool.” I said, delighted at being thought of as cool. And then I added, “It’s Ginnlaug Bryngerr by the way.”
“What is?” Robert said. I stared at him pointedly until he got it. “Bloody hell! Are they your middle names?” he laughed.
“Yup. So now who’s cool and edgy?”
“Well Edda Ginnlaug Bryngerr is of course!” he raised his glass in a toast. “Who the hell wants to be a Jane?”
Yes I was edgy; yes it was cool that I lived in a former brothel. And yes I was a guerrilla gardener by night with a lover who was an artist. But I was having another bad-Beth day and everything that was even slightly positive stopped counting on a bad-Beth day.
On a bad-Beth Day everything was grey and crappy. I had thought that I was past this stage: I thought the shiny new life I was building for myself was enough to distract me from the fact I was losing – had lost – the best friend I ever had. But since the Trafalgar, a few lonely eventless days were enough to put me back in the doldrums once more.
I had started out the day with good intentions. I’d been cleaning because I had a lodger and now took pride in maintaining my house, goddamn it. It had all been going well until I had found a pair of shoes in the understairs cupboard. Ridiculous how a single pair of shoes could move me so much. They were banana-yellow wedges and Beth and I had each bought an identical pair, for the first time that we’d gone to the Notting Hill Carnival, when we’d just moved down to London.
I have to phone her and tell her what I’ve just found! I must tell her she’ll be amazed I’ve still got these. I kept returning to the thought but each time I stopped myself from picking up the phone. Because I knew that, unlike me, Beth wasn’t looking backwards. She was looking forwards to her new and baby-filled life. Why would she want to come over to reminisce about an old pair of shoes for God’s sake? Of what interest would an old pair of shoes be to her now? That was then – the baby was now.
I cradled the shoes in my hand and cried because they were interesting to me still: they were still interesting to the one who was left behind. And as I sat on the edge of my bed and bawled my eyes out – pathetically clinging on to what was a really bad pair of yellow wedges – I hated myself for being so completely Mostly Ds – girl you seem to be unable to move on – you’re an out and out disaster!
“Going out?” Robert accosted me in the hallway.
“Just going to get milk.” I trembled. After much patheticness I had decided to get a bloody grip and go over to Beth’s flat to see her. I had the yellow wedges in a bag on my shoulder.
“Your eyes seem kind of strange.”
“They’re fine!” I chirruped in an everything’s great with me voice.
“Is it hay fever? Are you OK?” I could feel his eyes boring in to me.
I fumbled with my boots, using my hair to hide my face like a twelve year old wearing her mother’s make-up. “Sure. Fine. Want anything from the shop?” I dared to look up at him.
He clocked my swollen pink eyes and pursed his lips together. “No thanks.”
I waited a split second.
Nothing.
Fine. Right. Of course he wasn’t going to come over and hug me. Of course not. That wasn’t what men did. And certainly not what lodgers did.
But I so wanted him to. I wanted him to say, “C’mere,” and pull me to him in a big hug and tell me everything was going to be OK and go through all that ‘how cool you are’ stuff that he’d said in the Trafalgar the other night.
“Actually,” he said, with a new found conviction, and I looked up at him again, “if you can get some cornflakes that would be great. Kelloggs – not the unbranded sort they taste crap. Do you want the money now?”
What a git.
“All right there young Edda!”
I leapt in the dark, steadying myself by clutching the stone wall. Christ! It was impossible to get a moment to myself. Suddenly fleeing wet-eyed down the darkened road to Beth’s flat seemed a distant possibility what with people wanting cornflakes and fag-time chat. Modern life was completely getting in the way of good old-fashioned handwringing despair.
“Jumpy, ain’t yer?” Babs waved her fag at me. “Sign o’ guilt that is.” She looked at me suspiciously. “Want one?” She offered the packet and, seduced by the freshly unwrapped white cigarettes inside, I took one.
“Here.” She lit it for me across the garden wall.
“Bit nippy to be out this evenin’, ain’t it? Wish I could smoke in the ’ouse but me boyfriend only lets me smoke in the ’ouse after shaggin’,” Babs said, lightly. “You OK, love? These fags do make yer choke don’t they? Rough as a badger’s arse these fags: kill yer faster than the gin these will. Anyways,” she continued, “I wouldn’t pass up watchin’ the world go by, so I don’t mind standin’ out ’ere smokin’. Gets to talk to me neighbours, don’t I? Not ’im though, the one on the other side what eats dogs. But you, love, I get to talk to you.”
Still coughing, I was nevertheless touched by what she said. “So this is how you keep your finger on Brockley’s pulse?” I said, when I finally recovered. “You watch the world from your doorstep.”
Babs took her fag out and pointed it at me. “The bleedin’ cheek of it! Like I ’ave nothin’ better to do with me time than sit ’ere all bleedin’ day an’ night!”
“Oh I didn’t—”
“I know yer didn’t. Of course not. You’re a nice un Edda. It may not look much like it but I do ’ave a full and stimulated social life. I mix with many people from Peckham right up ter Blackheath. Yes, I see yer expression. I mix with all sorts – even up the ’eath. Anyways, talkin’ o’ posh, ’ow’s yer lodger gettin’ on? Robert.”
“Oh,” I managed, recovering, “fine.”
“Lovely arse on ’im,” she
said, matter-of-factly. “Nice boy an’ all. You could do a lot worse than ’im.”
“He’s just a lodger. He pays me.”
“An’ didn’t I tell yer that my bloke used to pay me for the first few weeks? Soon stops though: it don’t feel right when yer enjoyin’ it..”
“Anyway, how are you keeping Babs?”
“All right as it goes, love, thanks for askin’.” She took a drag on her cigarette. “Just avoidin’ ’im indoors if I ’ave to be honest with yer. Sex mad ’e is at the moment. It’s that Fiona Bruce on Antiques Roadshow. Gets ’im right in the mood seein’ ’er givin’ it some round the porcelain. Somethin’ about ’er arse.”
“Right.” I concentrated hard on my cigarette. Talking to Babs was the conversational equivalent of being hit in the face by a rounders bat.
“Well, I’ll leave yer to it.” Babs ground the end of her fag into the wall. “You ’ave a nice evenin’, Edda. Don’t do nothin’ I wouldn’t do.”
Finally I was alone. No heartless lodgers or faggy neighbours, both of whom had stripped my evening of its melodrama.
The heartache over the banana coloured wedges had dissipated in the wake of the cornflakes and Fiona Bruce’s arse. As I reached the front garden to Beth’s flat I re-focused on the Keats-style heart-rendingly poignant moment.
SOLD, SUBJECT TO CONTRACT
The sign wasn’t a surprise – she’d told me she’d got a buyer two weeks ago, but the finality of it still knocked me back.
I loitered outside the flat, staring hard at the sold sign, trying to get closure. Trying to force myself to feel the despair I really thought I ought to be feeling to be able to move on.
But there was nothing.
What was I doing here? Did I really want to see Beth, and what would I say to her anyway. The banana wedges seemed rather ridiculous now.
I ought to get Robert’s cornflakes.
Shit.
With a glance up and down the street to make sure Eustace wasn’t on the prowl for police signs I headed back to Geoffrey Road. There was a litter bin half way down the street and I shoved the banana wedges into it. They’d been bloody awful shoes anyway…
And then my heart leapt.
There was a figure, up ahead. And this time it didn’t look like Eustace.
This was it. This was my police-sign moment. Hastily I jammed my keys between the fingers of my fist, just in case. Beth would never need to do this in Surrey…
The person – a man – was walking in my direction on my side of the pavement and it was too late for me to turn and go back: Manor Road was a long straight road with no side-roads off it. I was trapped.
Head down I pounded forward, super-conscious of the feel of the keys between my fingers…
“Edda!”
I looked up at the ominous stranger and my heart leapt.
“Robert!”
“Edda!” He ran up to me, “Where were you? You’ve been gone ages: I was looking for you!”
“You were?” I felt an overwhelming happiness. So much so I unclenched my fist and let go of my keys.
“I thought you were going to the Mini Mart for cornflakes but Mr Iqbal said he hadn’t seen you. And you were so upset when you left the house…”
“Oh. That. Well…”
“Are you OK?”
“Yes,” I said. “I am.”
“You seemed really upset.”
“No,” I said and then, clocking his expression, even in the dark. “Maybe a bit.”
“About your friend?” he saw the sold sign outside Beth’s flat.
“Yes. Is that tragic of me?”
“Not at all. Of course you’re upset. Have you been to see her?”
“No.” I looked down at the pavement. “I’ve just been hanging around. She’ll be tired. Or busy doing baby things… I don’t know.”
“So you’re not going to see her tonight?”
“I don’t think so.” I could feel tears prick the back of my eyes again.
“Shall we go to the Barge then? Have a pint?” Robert said.
I looked up. “Yes! That would be really good.”
“Great. We can nip into the Mini Mart on the way there. I can pick up the cereal and tell Mr Iqbal you’re OK. He’s worried about you.”
“Is he?”
“Yeah – when I went in to see if you’d been there and we didn’t know where you were he said he could close up and come and help me look for you. He said you might have been murdered.”
“Ahh, that’s so sweet.”
We walked back down Manor Road and on to Geoffrey Road again.
“Nice rats by the way.”
“Eh?”
He pointed to the graffiti’d rats scampering along the bottom of a wall, chasing a terrified cat.
“Oh. Thanks. I only finished the stencil off for Tyrone two nights ago.”
Robert looked sideways at me. “You just can’t seem to shake off this South London thing can you?”
“It doesn’t look like it.” I said, slowly, because something was nagging me and I couldn’t work out what it was.
“What’s up?” Robert said. I had come to a stop and Robert stopped too.
“There’s … just …” I walked backwards to my house, which we’d just passed on our way to the Barge. Yes – it was different. I could see there was something next to my front door. A lot of something.
“Ro-bert,” I called him back. “Did you leave something by the door when you came out to find me?”
“No…”
I walked through the knot garden. In the dark I could make out lots and lots of potted plants huddled together close to my wall.
“What are they?” Robert asked from behind me.
I leant down and read one of the tags on the plants. “Sweet peas,” I said, still none the wiser as to why they were there.
“Is it to do with your secret thing,” Robert said quietly, with one eye to Babs’s house.
“It must be.” I walked around the assembled plants: there must have been fifty pots of sweet peas huddled together by the steps leading to my front door. “A letter!”
We looked around in case the deliverer of the plants and the letter was still in the knot garden but they’d gone. “Let’s go inside.”
“You go in. I’ll just run over to the Mini Mart to tell Mr Iqbal you’re not dead.”
“Don’t forget your cornflakes!” I called out softly after him.
Once in the kitchen I slit open the expensive-looking envelope that had been sealed with a lump of red wax and – I noted – the imprint of a leaping fox. So it was connected to the Brockley Spades.
The first thing I took out of the envelope was a Farrow and Ball colour chart booklet of miniature painted samples. I opened it up, spreading it out along the kitchen counter. “Manufacturers of traditional papers and paint.” There was a muted rainbow of expensive looking and terribly trendy samples of paint with names like Matchstick, Cord, Smoked Trout, London Stone, Radicchio and Babouche.
Behind me I heard Robert come in, panting from running, closing the front door and making a big fuss of Finley, who’d streaked across the kitchen to welcome him.
“Mr Iqbal says you should stop going out late at night on your own,” Robert came into the kitchen, depositing a giant box of cornflakes in his cupboard before sinking down onto the bar stool opposite me. “He also said you might want an organic nut bar, seeing as you’ve had such a narrow escape from a terrible murder.” He placed a Mr Squirrel Organic Raspberry, Fairtrade Chocolate and Responsibly Sourced Nut bar onto my colour chart.
“Brilliant. Thanks – do you want to go halves?”
“No need…” he said and opened a box of doughnuts.
“Doughnuts? I thought he’d stopped doing doughnuts? I thought they were not in keeping with the Marché any more?”
“Nope.” Robert bit into the jammy sugary doughnut and sighed. “The doughnuts, bagels and basmati rice have made a comeback. Enjoy your healthy nut bar. Now then, w
hat’s this?” He peered at the colour chart. “These paints are crazy – why aren’t any of them called Magnolia or Country Cream? You know,” he polished off his first doughnut and reached out for another, “don’t you think it’s a bit creepy?”
“What? That I have all these plants? No. Why should it be creepy?”
“Well because someone was obviously watching our house.” He said our house again and my stomach did its flip-thing again. He continued, “And in between me going out and leaving it empty and both of us coming back the ‘drop’ took place.”
“I hadn’t really considered it,” I said, biting thoughtfully on my nut bar.
“Well you should do. We’ve been watched. You left the house, I left the house and the plants were dumped. It’s no coincidence.”
“Oh stop freaking me out,” I said.
Robert shrugged. “Go on then, what does your letter say?”
“It’s from Eustace Fox. The head of the Brockley Spades. It says, ‘Dearest Edda, I do so hope this letter finds you well?’”
“I didn’t realise Eustace Fox came from 1840.”
“He is a bit like that. He used the word juxtaposition the other day when he was talking to me, I had to look it up in the dictionary when I got home and I still don’t know what it means. So, shall I carry on reading it out or are you not bothered?”
Robert clapped his hands together and sank onto a seat, “Please do so. You don’t mind if I fix myself a sherry and loosen my cravat, do you?”
“So funny … OK… ‘I hope this letter finds you well. I sincerely hope that you don’t mind accepting these few Lathyrus odoratus, which I believe would look superb planted up around the street lights along Geoffrey Road. I note many of the street lights have the paving slabs removed from around their base with the earth bared and it would be just marvellous to make use of these multifarious opportunities to create several miniature gardens along your beautiful road which is, dear Edda, at the very heart of our neighbourhood. Also left with you is a roll of twine and lengths of wire to enable the plants to climb. You will of course need to plant them soon (the weather is so fine for early June isn’t it?) and you will need to water them every other day for the first fortnight. I’m sure Guy will be more than glad to help you out. I sincerely think you will make all the difference to Brockley.”