by Tara Heavey
‘Can we see it?’ It was the first time Emily had spoken.
‘The garden?’
‘Yes.’
‘Now?’ She hadn’t anticipated this.
Emily nodded.
‘But it’s dark.’
‘I have a torch,’ said Uri.
You would, thought Aoife, somewhat bitterly. Then she checked herself. She was damn lucky they had someone who knew what he was talking about. Because she clearly didn’t.
‘What if someone else shows up…?’ Her voice trailed off. Her two visitors glanced at the clock, then back at her. Nine o’clock. There was no need for them to say anything.
‘What about Liam?’
‘I can come too, Mummy.’ Liam’s words were moist against her throat.
Why not? she thought. He was wide awake anyway. ‘Okay.’
‘Yippee!’ Liam climbed off her lap and ran out to the hall, presumably to get his boots.
She remembered something. ‘But I don’t have the key yet.’
‘Can we ask the owner?’ said Uri.
‘I suppose we could. But I wouldn’t like to disturb her. It’s a bit late.’
‘Of course. You’re right. But is there a way to see in at all?’
‘There’s a gate we can look through.’
‘Well, then.’ He got up.
And they all put their coats on and went outside.
It felt weird, walking along with the two strangers, close in the darkness, Liam’s hand clinging to hers. They crunched along the pavement, their breath solid and white in the winter air. They were silent mostly, Liam’s intermittent questions easing the tension.
When they were almost there, Uri drew alongside her. ‘Are you a gardener?’ he asked.
The question she’d been dreading. ‘No. I’m a lecturer.’
‘In horticulture?’
‘No. English.’ She looked at him. His eyes were on the ground. ‘Are you?’
‘A gardener?’
‘Yes.’
‘No. Just a keen amateur. I’m a tailor by trade.’
‘Oh.’
That would explain his immaculate appearance. Could he tell she’d bought her clothes ready made and off the peg in Dunnes Stores?
‘Here we are.’
‘Oh, I know this place,’ said Emily.
They arrived at the gate and peered into the darkness. The nearest streetlight was quite a distance away. Then Uri switched on his torch and shone the powerful beam. They all pressed their faces up against the gate and followed the arc of light as it illuminated various parts of the garden. She watched them. They were suitably spellbound. Good.
‘Can I have a go?’
Uri handed the torch to Liam, who swung the beam erratically around the whole neighbourhood.
‘Well,’ said Aoife, ‘what do you think?’
‘I’m in,’ said Uri.
‘Me too,’ said Emily.
Good.
Good.
7
It was really happening. She was really going to do this, she and her army of two volunteers. Thus she found herself, for the third time, on Mrs Prendergast’s doorstep, one drizzly morning in December. Her fingers had barely made contact with the brass knocker before the door opened.
‘I was wondering when you’d turn up again.’
Charming.
‘Good morning, Mrs Prendergast. I’ve come to let you know that I’ve decided to take you up on your offer. We’ll be starting work on the garden directly after Christmas.’
‘We?’
‘Me and the other volunteers.’
‘Will there be many?’
‘Only a few at first.’
‘All right, then.’ She started to close the door.
‘Mrs Prendergast?’
‘What?’
‘I’m going to need a key.’
She nodded and disappeared. Aoife could hear a drawer being opened and some rummaging. Mrs Prendergast returned with a massive, rusty object. ‘Here we are. I dug it up in case you came back. It’s for the padlock on the gate. I don’t even know if it works any more.’
She handed it to Aoife, gave her a strange look, as if she couldn’t work her out, then shut the door.
As Aoife went down the steps she could feel the joy soaring into her throat. She felt like singing. Bouncing along the pavement, she rounded the corner and headed for the gate. The key fitted. But that was as far as it went. She wriggled, she pushed, she twisted and she turned. Nothing. She cursed her weak, feminine hands. Michael could have opened it.
Angry with herself for the thought, she tried again, more forcefully this time, making grunts worthy of a Wimbledon champion. She was on the verge of giving up when she felt something give. A subtle twisting into place. She felt a kind of elation as the padlock came undone and fell into her palm. She unwrapped the chain – once, twice, three times. The gate emitted a creak worthy of a Hammer horror film. How long since it was last opened? She stepped quickly inside and secured it.
How quiet. How eerie. How suddenly cut off she felt from the outside world. The traffic whizzing past. The pedestrians rushing by. Here, all was still. Timeless. Untouched for nigh on forty years. She walked silently to the centre, feeling as if she’d suddenly become invisible. She bent and touched the duckweed on the pond. It separated to reveal dank, dark-green water beneath. You couldn’t see the bottom. It was probably only a foot deep but to Aoife, in that moment, it could have gone on for ever. The ground was soft with rainfall and the air was still. The garden seemed to be breathing all around her, the plants silently growing.
She sank to her knees and started to cry.
Myrtle bowed her head and locked the gate. That was it for her. She would store the key somewhere obscure. She took one last look at the garden through the bars. But was she looking out or in? All she knew was that she wasn’t going back.
8
Christmas was over, the less said about it the better. It was time to make a new start. Onwards and upwards in the garden.
Aoife had asked all her family for garden implements as presents, ignoring their comments and strange looks, which would have been decidedly more so had they known that she herself had only a yard with a few scattered pots. She had received a spade, a big fork, a trowel, a little fork, a thing for pruning low branches and another thing for lopping high branches. She’d been swotting too, having realized that an in-depth knowledge of the legend of Cupid and Psyche wasn’t going to get her far in a real walled garden. Not that she had a hope of fooling Uri. She had a feeling she’d already been rumbled there.
That first morning they were both waiting for her at the gate. She saw them before they saw her. Uri had his hands dug deep inside his overcoat and his face pressed up against the wrought iron. It must have been freezing. Emily was staring into the middle distance, in what Aoife was beginning to think of as her habitual pose.
‘Sorry I’m late. Liam wouldn’t let me leave the crèche. He must have known something was up.’ She reached them, breathless and pink-cheeked. The cold air was making her nose run and she wiped it surreptitiously with a ragged piece of toilet tissue. Uri smiled at her broadly and Emily gave her a little nod. She noticed they had tools with them too. All the better for digging.
She struggled a little less with the gate this time and they went into the garden. Emily walked a few paces and looked all around. Uri took himself off to explore the furthest reaches, bending and prodding and muttering to himself. Aoife gave them a few minutes to familiarize themselves, letting them wander back to her in their own time. Uri seemed excited, Emily expectant.
‘Where do you want us to start?’
This was a critical moment for Aoife. Uri clearly knew far more about gardening than she did yet he was deferring to her. She wasn’t sure how she would have handled it if he had tried to take over. She might have been half inclined to let him. But he hadn’t. So…
‘Well. The place is a bit of a mess, so the first thing that has to be done, I
think, is to clear it.’
‘I agree,’ said Uri, nodding and smiling as if she’d said something really intelligent rather than blindingly obvious. ‘Of course, it would have been better if we could have started the clearing in the autumn but not to worry.’
‘Of course,’ said Aoife, experiencing a surge of excitement. She’d learned that from the swotting. ‘Now, we may find some plants that are salvageable, so be careful what you pull out.’ She directed this comment at Emily who, for all she knew, was as clueless as herself. ‘So,’ she said, ‘let’s get gardening.’
Aoife, Emily and Uri spent three successive days pulling, yanking, chopping and hacking in the walled garden. On the second day there was light snow. Uri brought along a yard brush and beat it from the upper branches of the evergreens.
‘But it looks so pretty up there,’ said Aoife.
‘It might damage the trees if we leave it.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘We might be eligible for a grant.’
‘Really?’
‘If we billed it as a community project. It might help with the planting costs. Would you like me to look into it?’
‘Yes, please!’
‘In the meantime I can bring in plenty of cuttings.’
‘That’d be great, Uri.’
It was great. He was great – with his ridiculous yet charming deference to her authority. If she hadn’t had him helping her, she’d have been well and truly banjaxed. The reality was that stark. It was as if somebody had sent him – ordered him from some magic mail-order catalogue.
Liam came along with the snow, speeding up and down the partly cleared paths on his yellow tractor. Aoife hoped the others didn’t mind his presence. They didn’t appear to. She had noticed Emily watching him intently, but she didn’t seem annoyed. Intrigued, rather. Uri told him stories. Long, convoluted tales, mostly involving dragons, with Liam invariably the hero of the piece. They didn’t talk much, the three adults. There didn’t seem any need to, apart from ‘Pass the secateurs,’ and suchlike. They settled into a silence that Aoife found oddly companionable, seeing as they hardly knew one another. It must have been something to do with their common cause.
On the third day – a Sunday – they agreed to stay on for the afternoon. Lunch consisted of goat’s cheese and green tomato chutney on ciabatta, then organic apples, all washed down with sparkling elderflower cordial. This came courtesy of Emily, whose aunt happened to be the proprietor of the Good Food Store. Aoife brought hot tea in a flask and Uri supplied the cups. Liam had his first gobstopper, under the close supervision of his mother. He stuck his tongue out at intervals. ‘What colour is it now?’
‘Red,’ said Aoife.
‘Green,’ said Uri.
‘Blue,’ said Emily.
It was late on Sunday afternoon and the light was failing.
‘Shall we call it a day?’ said Aoife.
‘I think so,’ said Uri.
They stood back to admire the progress that had been made. It was getting easier to discern the original shape of the garden.
‘Of course,’ Uri went on, ‘we’ll have our work cut out for us in the spring when the new growth starts. Keeping down the weeds.’
Aoife nodded solemnly, but inside she felt something close to jubilation. What did she care for a few weeds? Look at what they’d achieved in three days!
‘Over here. Quick!’ It was Emily. Shouting! Emily, who scarcely raised her voice above a whisper. The two rushed over, expecting a pruned finger at the very least. But when they got there Emily was crouched on the ground, her face shining, as if she’d had a vision. ‘Look.’
Aoife and Uri peered at the small patch she had been clearing.
There, in the fading light, in all its smallness and whiteness, was a snowdrop.
9
Emily’s future spread out before her like a vast expanse of Montana grassland. Endless. Limitless in its possibilities. She’d never been to Montana, although she had seen The Horse Whisperer. Nevertheless, this was the image she’d hugged to herself ever since she’d left home and started college.
Maybe it was because her family was so large, so overwhelming, and their home so small in comparison. Always having to share a room. Never being on your own. Which was why, growing up, she had learned how to spend so much time in the spacious, beautifully furnished room of her imagination. And why her current one-bedroomed flat, lit by one tiny window, was to her the glittering, multi-mirrored Palace of Versailles. She would lie on her bed in the morning, feeling the weight of the sun pressing on her eyelids, rendering everything blood-coloured. She would stretch out her bare toes and fling her arms back on either side of her head. She would imagine her dark hair fanned out on the white pillow and luxuriate in her aloneness, knowing what it was to be young and free with the space to grow into herself at last.
Emily knew she’d be lying to herself if she pretended she’d felt like this from her very first day of college. On the contrary, she’d been terrified. These city girls seemed so unbelievably sure of themselves. They made her feel like such a dork. It wasn’t so much what they said or what they did, just the way they were. So to deal with this, Emily had adopted a kind of strategy. She’d lain low for a couple of weeks and studied them – how they moved, how they gesticulated, but mostly how they wore their clothes. By Monday of the third week she was ready. This was how she looked. Her haircut was gamine – dark and sleek. Then from the bottom up: nude Ugg boots, black diamond tights, denim miniskirt and short black leather jacket, cinched at the waist. Around her neck, in the manner of a tie, was a scarf she’d bought secondhand in Temple Bar. Her bag was vintage and so was her jewellery. She especially loved the chandelier earrings. They made her feel like Queen Nefertiti. She was confident she looked nothing like the farmer’s daughter she was, and felt ready to insinuate herself into the company of her female classmates. During lectures, she would sit beside a likely-looking girl and one or other of them would strike up a conversation.
Her strategy worked. Before long she was in a magic circle of girls who, in their quest for individuality, wore identical clothes and held identical views. Part of her knew that this set-up was shallow, but so far nobody had noticed that she wasn’t cool. Mission accomplished, as far as she was concerned.
The boys were another matter. They were everywhere, in every conceivable incarnation, their voices and laughter over-loud with exaggerated self-confidence. She was in awe. She felt like she had as a child when she’d fantasized about being locked in a sweetshop overnight, even though, so far, she hadn’t so much as stolen a kiss. She didn’t want to make a mistake and choose the wrong one. It was far too important a selection to make.
One night, some time around the beginning of her second term, she was sitting in the college bar. It was freezing outside and the bar held a welcome glow. She was surrounded by five or six of her gal-pals, chatting and texting and going out for a Marlboro Light. A group of lads sat across the way, drinking pints of lager and pretending not to look at them.
One of the boys, Joe, noticed Emily before she noticed him. It was his friend Niall who brought her to his attention. He nudged Joe’s arm. ‘What do you think of her?’
‘Which one?’
‘Twelve o’clock. Dark hair, legs crossed.’
Joe stole a casual glance, then returned to his pint. ‘Looks like a librarian.’
‘Yeah, but a hot librarian. Like she’d whip off her glasses and do you across the desk.’
‘She’s not wearing glasses.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘You’ve been watching too much porn.’
‘No such thing as too much porn.’
Joe glanced at her again. She was nice. Small and dark and neat. Pretty in a quiet, not too obvious way. And she looked like she’d be a tough nut to crack. Which was always appealing.
‘Want to meet her?’
‘What? Just like that?’
‘I know
one of the friends. She was in my sister’s class in school. They must be first years. Come on.’
And so it happened that the two boys traversed the great divide and introduced themselves. Joe sat as close to Emily as propriety allowed. ‘Hi, I’m Joe.’
‘Emily.’
‘Lovely name.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Are you a first year, Emily?’
She nodded.
‘What are you studying?’
‘Pure English.’
Joe thought it fitting that she should be studying something pure. It suited her primness.
‘I’m doing engineering. Third year.’ He volunteered the information as he had judged, quite rightly, that she was unlikely to ask him for it. As it was, she just nodded. Other young men might have been put off by her reticence, but Joe, who was not in the least self-contained, was impressed by the quality in other people. Especially women.
‘So. Do you drink here much?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Why don’t we meet up here Thursday night?’ he suggested. ‘Just you and me,’ he added, lest there be any confusion.
Emily lowered her eyes and said nothing, which made Joe considerably keener.
‘About eight.’
‘Okay.’
‘You will?’
‘Yes.’
Joe beamed, and before long, he and Niall sidled back whence they had come.
Emily’s friend Rebecca, the one who knew Niall’s sister, slid over into the chair that Joe had just vacated. ‘That looked very cosy.’
Emily grinned. She couldn’t help herself. ‘He asked me out.’
‘What?’
‘Keep your voice down – they’re only over there.’
The two girls looked over at Joe and Niall, who had rejoined the rugby scrum of mates, all huddled together around their table.
‘They’re probably talking about you,’ said Rebecca.
‘Stop!’
‘I’m only teasing. Where’s he taking you?’
Emily’s crest fell a little as it struck her that he hadn’t asked her out for a fancy dinner. ‘We’re meeting here for a drink.’ She could see that Rebecca was having the same thought.