Lob
Page 7
Dad had been given a plan, like a map, and he led the way along a grass path. And here it was: the smell of memories, and of Grandpa, and of happy days digging and planting.
The richness of dug soil. Earth and dampness and grass and growing. Shoots and stalks and new leaves; the promise of tight-furled buds. The scritch of something pecking in the shadows under a rhubarb plant.
Garden magic. The spell of it, deep and strong. All around, flowing into her.
Lucy breathed it all in. She heard a blackbird singing. She was dizzied.
Oh, she had forgotten! How good it made her feel, how here and now and alive…
Dad had found their plot; he stood looking at it, but Mum was distracted by the one next to theirs.
‘Just look at this! So well cared for, and what amazing plants! I don’t know what most of them are. Someone works hard here.’
‘And how about ours?’ said Dad. ‘I was told it had got out of hand, but it’s not that bad.’
‘Perhaps someone’s been helping,’ said Mum.
Going over to look, Lucy heard Grandpa Will’s voice in her memory. Oh, he’ll be about, somewhere or other, he said, in his creaky, comfortable way. Sure as ninepence.
This was a Lob place, if ever there was one.
She stood still. She trembled. But just as she was about to whisper Lob’s name, Dad called out to her; he was chatting to someone by a shed.
‘Lucy! Come and meet Cornelius!’
Cornelius had the plot alongside theirs, the one that was tended and planted and ready to burst its boundaries, so full it was of glossy leaves and twining stems. As Cornelius stood up from his bench, Lucy saw his kind brown face and his silvered hair; she saw how his eyes seemed filmed over, and didn’t look directly at her, but somewhere over her shoulder. Then she noticed how he felt his way, reaching with a stick, and she realized.
And even before she heard his deep voice with a creak in it, the Jamaican accent that at once she wanted to copy, Lucy knew that Cornelius was going to be their good and special friend.
‘Welcome,’ he said. ‘Welcome, Lucy.’ And he shook her hand, as if she were a grown-up.
‘What a marvellous allotment!’ said Mum, gazing round, reaching out to touch a leaf. ‘How do you manage it all?’
‘Ah, well,’ said Cornelius, with a secretive smile. ‘I have quite a bit of help.’ And he glanced towards the gooseberry bushes, as if listening out for something.
Lucy looked that way too. There was a quivering in the leaves, a dry scratching, and then, just for a second, she saw – thought she saw – a scruffy figure, in clothes the colour of bark. She heard a scuffling that rustled like laughter. And, looking out at her between stems, a pair of bright eyes, green as new acorns. She gave a little gulp. Was it? Could it be?
‘Is it you?’ she whispered; and her ears thought they heard a rippling laugh. ‘Is it? Have you come? Have you been waiting?’
Cornelius swivelled to face her; and she knew they were recognizing each other. Each knew that the other knew Lob.
But neither she nor Cornelius said anything, because Dad was asking what the various plants were, and Cornelius began to feel his way along the rows, pointing out callaloo, and the beds ready for bonnet peppers and speckled beans. And Lucy followed, and listened, and knew that this was the best place to be, in the whole of London. She hugged her secret, her wonderful, delicious secret. Lob was here. Lob! She’d called him, and he’d come. He was here, and so was she. And everything felt right. She knew it in her heart and her soul and her fingers.
September
And now?
Lucy comes to the allotment every weekend, and some days after school. She has her own part of it, her own rows; her own trowel and fork hang in the shed. She gets mud on her boots and soil under her fingernails, and is happy.
Courgette flowers flare. Pumpkins and squashes squat like plump gold cushions. Speckled pods dangle. Everywhere is the purple and blue and maroon of cabbages, and green the brightest colour of all – shades of green, and the green of shade; green so vivid that it dazzles.
Sometimes Trudie comes, and Lucy has new friends as well – Zivvy and Benji, who are the same age as her but go to a different school. Lob would be a secret shared between Lucy and Cornelius, if it weren’t for Zivvy and benji being in on it, too. Partly, at least. They play Lob games with their Granpa. They pretend, because they think he likes pretending.
‘Is Lob here today, Granpa?’ they ask. ‘Where he hiding?’
‘Up there,’ Lucy tells them. ‘See – quick!’ And she points at Lob, up on the shed roof, where he’s looking down at them all, chittering. But all they see is a roof, so they think Lucy’s having a game with them. But Cornelius is smiling.
‘Oh!’ huffs benji. ‘I want to see Lob. Why can’t I?’
‘And me!’ Zivvy’s not going to be left out.
‘P’raps you will,’ Lucy tells them. ‘If you keep looking.’
But now she can’t see Lob herself. Where is he? In the spinach? Between the raspberry canes? Up in the tree? Settling for a rest on the compost bin?
He’s everywhere.
‘Isn’t it funny that Cornelius tells Lob stories to the children!’ says Mum, walking home one Sunday afternoon. ‘I thought Lob was Grandpa Will’s invention. I always thought he made up the stories for Lucy – and for himself.’
‘No, he used to tell me, as well, long before Lucy was around.’ Dad’s carrying bags of potatoes and onions, and leafy callaloo given him by Cornelius. ‘I think it’s an old, old story.’
‘But some people know Lob’s real,’ says Lucy. ‘Special people.’
And because she knows better now, she says it in a jokey way, so as not to give away the secret that belongs to her and Grandpa and Cornelius and Lob. She remembers what Grandpa told her, back in Clunny Cottage; she hears his creaky, comfortable voice, saying it. And it’s as if he’s still around, somewhere.
Lob’s made of rain and wind. Sun and hail. Light and dark. He’s made of fire and earth and air. He’s made of grit and stones and stardust. Time gone and time waiting. The same stuff as all of us.
And Lucy knows that Lob is for ever and ever and ever, as long as the Earth is green.
Even if you haven’t seen Lob, you’ll probably see a Green Man, if you look, or sometimes a Green Woman. They’re masked or caped or hooded in leaves. You might see one carved in a church doorway, looking out at you from stems and leaves of stone. They’re everywhere. You might find one on a pub sign, or catch a glimpse of a face in the trees. You’ll quite often meet them in gardens, of course; they like gardens. Some are majestic, some are friendly; some are stern, others mischievous. But each one has something of Lob about it.
If you come across one, try looking at it sideways, out of the corner of your eye.
It might be watching you back. They often do.
And next time you’re in a wood or a garden, or near a tree or a hedge, be alert for rustlings and scritchings and scufflings.
Is that Lob? Is he there?
Maybe he isn’t.
Maybe he is.
The End
Acknowledgements
With thanks, as ever, to David, Bella, Hannah and Linda, for patience, enthusiasm, insight and guidance. To Alison, Ben and Adele, for helpful suggestions. To Ness Wood and Pam Smy, for making the finished book such a beautiful thing. To Trevor, for many kinds of support. To Bernard Johnson, for my wise and companionable Green Man. To Michael de Larrabeiti, for The Provençal Tales. To Edward Thomas, of course. And to the man who walks the roads, who must have dropped a seed as he passed by. Thank you.
Also by Linda Newbery:
The Shell House
Sisterland
Set in Stone
Flightsend
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LOB
A DAVID FICKLING BOOK 978 0 385 61081 0
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